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Contemplate
Sara Gwendolen Frostic passed away peacefully on Wednesday, April 25, 2001. She was born April 26, 1906 in Sandusky, Michigan to Fred W. and Sara (Alexander) Frostic. As a well-known author and lecturer Gwen shared her observations of the universe. She was owner and president of Presscraft Papers, Gwen Frostic Prints, of Benzonia. Over the years Gwen had been awarded honorary degrees from many colleges and universities. In 1978 Michigan Governor William Milliken proclaimed May 23rd as Gwen Frostic Day in Michigan, and in 1986 she was inducted into the Michigan Woman's Hall of Fame. Attuned to the spirit of nature, Gwen sketched flowers - birds -trees - grasses and other little things one finds - out where they grow and live - cut each linoleum block by hand for the notepapers - calendars and books to share with you the grandeur and wondrous simplicity of nature -its serenity - and beauty.
- GenresPoetry
60 pages
First published January 1, 1973
87 people want to read
About the author
Gwen Frostic
34 books36 followersSara Gwendolen Frostic
"was born in Sandusky, Michigan to Sara and Fred Frostic. When she was 8 months old she suffered from an unknown illness which left her with lifelong symptoms similar to cerebral palsy. Despite physical difficulties Frostic showed an early interest and aptitude for art. In June 1924 she graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Wyandotte, where she was known for using a band saw to create event posters for her school. She continued her studies at Eastern Michigan University earning her teacher's certificate and gaining membership in Alpha Sigma Tau sorority. In 1926 she transferred to Western Michigan University and left in 1927 without completing her degree. She continued her artistic endeavors in metal and plastic, while occasionally teaching, but with the war came a lack of metal to work with and she turned to linoleum block carving. Frostic then turned her linoleum block carving into stationery goods and prints which led to her starting her own printing company, Presscraft Papers. In the early 1950s Frostic opened up a shop selling her prints, books, and other items in Frankfort and in 1960 she bought 40 acres (160,000 m2) of land in Benzonia with the intention of moving her and her shop. On April 26, 1964 her new shop was open for business and she lived there until her death in 2001." ~ wikipedia
"Over the years Gwen had been awarded honorary degrees from many colleges and universities. In 1978 Michigan Governor William Milliken proclaimed May 23rd as Gwen Frostic Day in Michigan, and in 1986 she was inducted into the Michigan Woman's Hall of Fame.
Long before her death she wrote her epitaph:
"Here lies one doubly blessed.
She was happy and she knew it."" ~ http://www.gwenfrostic.com/
"was born in Sandusky, Michigan to Sara and Fred Frostic. When she was 8 months old she suffered from an unknown illness which left her with lifelong symptoms similar to cerebral palsy. Despite physical difficulties Frostic showed an early interest and aptitude for art. In June 1924 she graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Wyandotte, where she was known for using a band saw to create event posters for her school. She continued her studies at Eastern Michigan University earning her teacher's certificate and gaining membership in Alpha Sigma Tau sorority. In 1926 she transferred to Western Michigan University and left in 1927 without completing her degree. She continued her artistic endeavors in metal and plastic, while occasionally teaching, but with the war came a lack of metal to work with and she turned to linoleum block carving. Frostic then turned her linoleum block carving into stationery goods and prints which led to her starting her own printing company, Presscraft Papers. In the early 1950s Frostic opened up a shop selling her prints, books, and other items in Frankfort and in 1960 she bought 40 acres (160,000 m2) of land in Benzonia with the intention of moving her and her shop. On April 26, 1964 her new shop was open for business and she lived there until her death in 2001." ~ wikipedia
"Over the years Gwen had been awarded honorary degrees from many colleges and universities. In 1978 Michigan Governor William Milliken proclaimed May 23rd as Gwen Frostic Day in Michigan, and in 1986 she was inducted into the Michigan Woman's Hall of Fame.
Long before her death she wrote her epitaph:
"Here lies one doubly blessed.
She was happy and she knew it."" ~ http://www.gwenfrostic.com/
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 30, 2022
This was a staff pick at the library and was pleasantly surprised with the art and the writing. I could relate with what the author was writing about as I enjoy nature, thinking, and the calmness of silence. This Michigan author died in 2001, in her 90s. I wonder what she would think about our world in the 2020s as she wrote this book in the 1970s and every word is still valid today. I would imagine these words are even more valid today. Picking this up was a good reminder to keep open to reading something out of the ordinary, at least once in a while.
January 18, 2020
A bit outdated, but still a reasonably effective call to action.
October 20, 2021
Truthfully sad and inspiring.
July 5, 2023
She really makes you feel guilty for being a human, for all the right reasons.
April 18, 2011
Gwen Frostic, Contemplate (Presscraft Papers, 1978)
All that time I spent looking for a copy of Wing-borne (q.v., review 21Mar2011), and a couple of days later I discover that for some amount of that time, I actually had another Frostic book sitting on my shelf. Must have picked it up at a library book sale sometime in the past decade. I considered just tossing it in the Half-Price Books box without reading, given that Wing-Borne was so bad, but I am that peculiar strain of book geek who has a hard time letting a volume pass through his hands, fan of the author or not, without actually reading the blessed thing, or attempting to. And thus, I sat down with Contemplate one quiet night, and unleashed upon myself a book so horrendous as to make Wing-Borne look like Pulitzer material.
Frostic takes the same “nature > man” rhetoric that fills Wing-Borne here, but combines it with the rhetoric of the activist-nihilist as some sort of attempt to scare readers (and let's remember that she was always, almost certainly, preaching to the choir rather than getting the message out to the heathen), and overlays the whole mass of mediocrity with that Frostic love for dots, dashes, and other silly, incorrect punctuation. And you end up with something like this, though you won't get it quite the way it shows up in the book (the indents will be stripped, as they always are with Amazon, and of course I can't duplicate the godawful font):
“There were some -
so concerned with human rights – and needs -
they failed to understand that the fulfillment
of human needs was dependent upon a
wholesome environment for all life
upon this earth . . .
—and so — —
man went on developing things - - -
creating ways to master the universe . . .”
need I go on? And have you ever read a more un-poetic line in something purporting to be poetry than “they failed to understand that the fulfillment”? (We won't even go into the idea that any poet worth a sniff would never consider ending a line of poetry with an article, other than to gawk at it in wonder.) As is often the case with this sort of tripe, it's not poetry by any stretch of the imagination; it's simply political screed chopped up into little lines to make it look like poetry, as so much horrible amateur work (and not a little horrible professional work) is.
This is such a terrible book I briefly considered burning it, rather than sending it off to HPB and letting some poor, unready soul happen upon it and be forever scarred by the godawful non-verse therein. There are many days over the years I've regretted not doing the same with other books in the same category of “the worst crap I've ever laid eyes on”. But I am also of that even more peculiar strain of book geek who realizes that, while the only actually decent reason for censorship is the lack of literary merit of the book in question (and one wonders, idly, that more of the book-banning idiots in Kansas haven't changed their plan of attack to note that some of the books they want taken out of the schools quite simply suck, from the standpoint of construction, writing style, etc.), it's still censorship. Or maybe it's simply misery loving company. The fact that I have read Contemplate and Sue Doro's Heart, Home, and Hard Hats and Bill Bissett's scars on th seehors and Liz Waldner's Etym(bi)ology and Sean Yeedell's Dreams, Fantasies, Love, Reality, and all the other terrifying attempts at poetry that have passed my eyes over the years, makes me want to have someone else similarly scarred to commiserate with. (zero)
All that time I spent looking for a copy of Wing-borne (q.v., review 21Mar2011), and a couple of days later I discover that for some amount of that time, I actually had another Frostic book sitting on my shelf. Must have picked it up at a library book sale sometime in the past decade. I considered just tossing it in the Half-Price Books box without reading, given that Wing-Borne was so bad, but I am that peculiar strain of book geek who has a hard time letting a volume pass through his hands, fan of the author or not, without actually reading the blessed thing, or attempting to. And thus, I sat down with Contemplate one quiet night, and unleashed upon myself a book so horrendous as to make Wing-Borne look like Pulitzer material.
Frostic takes the same “nature > man” rhetoric that fills Wing-Borne here, but combines it with the rhetoric of the activist-nihilist as some sort of attempt to scare readers (and let's remember that she was always, almost certainly, preaching to the choir rather than getting the message out to the heathen), and overlays the whole mass of mediocrity with that Frostic love for dots, dashes, and other silly, incorrect punctuation. And you end up with something like this, though you won't get it quite the way it shows up in the book (the indents will be stripped, as they always are with Amazon, and of course I can't duplicate the godawful font):
“There were some -
so concerned with human rights – and needs -
they failed to understand that the fulfillment
of human needs was dependent upon a
wholesome environment for all life
upon this earth . . .
—and so — —
man went on developing things - - -
creating ways to master the universe . . .”
need I go on? And have you ever read a more un-poetic line in something purporting to be poetry than “they failed to understand that the fulfillment”? (We won't even go into the idea that any poet worth a sniff would never consider ending a line of poetry with an article, other than to gawk at it in wonder.) As is often the case with this sort of tripe, it's not poetry by any stretch of the imagination; it's simply political screed chopped up into little lines to make it look like poetry, as so much horrible amateur work (and not a little horrible professional work) is.
This is such a terrible book I briefly considered burning it, rather than sending it off to HPB and letting some poor, unready soul happen upon it and be forever scarred by the godawful non-verse therein. There are many days over the years I've regretted not doing the same with other books in the same category of “the worst crap I've ever laid eyes on”. But I am also of that even more peculiar strain of book geek who realizes that, while the only actually decent reason for censorship is the lack of literary merit of the book in question (and one wonders, idly, that more of the book-banning idiots in Kansas haven't changed their plan of attack to note that some of the books they want taken out of the schools quite simply suck, from the standpoint of construction, writing style, etc.), it's still censorship. Or maybe it's simply misery loving company. The fact that I have read Contemplate and Sue Doro's Heart, Home, and Hard Hats and Bill Bissett's scars on th seehors and Liz Waldner's Etym(bi)ology and Sean Yeedell's Dreams, Fantasies, Love, Reality, and all the other terrifying attempts at poetry that have passed my eyes over the years, makes me want to have someone else similarly scarred to commiserate with. (zero)
June 6, 2007
"Man could not seem to understand
--that the things he called pests
were part of the living universe
-that each one had as much right
to its tiny spot on earth
as man to his......."
--that the things he called pests
were part of the living universe
-that each one had as much right
to its tiny spot on earth
as man to his......."
December 12, 2009
Beautiful.
August 23, 2015
Wise words and beautiful artwork!
March 23, 2016
This book spoke the worry of my spirit, in this modern time.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews