Sodapop, Ponyboy and the Rest of the Gang

I was 13 when I first read "The Outsiders." 


Blew my tiny little mind.


I KNEW those guys. I kind of wanted to be one of them. And I had to keep checking the "About the Author" page to confirm that yes, indeed, the book was written by a woman. It's not that I doubted a woman could write in a man's voice. I just couldn't believe she had nailed it so hard.


I had no idea there had been a (frankly pretty lousy) movie adaptation with Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Ralph Maccio et. al. I just felt some kind of weird kinship with these hoodlums that I couldn't shake. 


It also introduced me to this poem, which has since become essentially a "Stay gold, Ponyboy" punchline for a lot of people. I'd been introduced to Frost in school but this poem hit me like a sucker punch. The bittersweet longing of it, the beauty and tragedy. It's elegiac, autumnal but also very alive. It's also the first poem I memorized without being forced to for school, so it's stuck with me.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.