SOURCE: “Robert Francis and the Bluejay,” in Field, No. 25, Fall, 1981, pp. 8-11.

In the following essay, Young discusses Francis's poem “Bluejay” in terms of its formal and thematic elements.

“bluejay”

So bandit-eyed, so undovelike a bird to be my pastoral father's favorite— skulker and blusterer whose every arrival is a raid. 

Love made the bird no gentler nor him who loved less gentle. Still, still the wild blue feather brings my mild father. 

It is a troublesome fact that Robert Francis, at the age of 80, is still so little known. His modest and retired life near Amherst, Massachusetts, may partly explain his obscurity, along with a relatively slow development—most of his best poems were written after he turned fifty—and a number of years spent in the shadow of his friend and mentor Robert Frost. Then too, it must be noted that his poems are modest in...