But all fun's in how you say thing. --Robert Frost, Mountain. The most famous poetry reading in American history occurred on Friday January 20, 1961. On that bright chilly morning, Robert Frost stood before vast crowd assembled at Capitol in Washington, D.C., to recite Gift Outright as part of John F. Kennedy's inauguration ceremony. Frost had planned to say two poems that morning. The first, Dedication (subsequently titled For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration), Frost couldn't complete because sharp sun blinded his failing eyes, despite his having had poem typed on an oversized-character typewriter once used by President Eisenhower. After fumbling through first few lines of Dedication Frost abandoned altogether, telling crowd, to their roaring approval, that was merely a preface to poem I can say to you without seeing it (qtd. in Thompson, Later Years 281). He then intoned Gift Outright in voice that biographer Lawrance Thompson calls firm unfaltering reporter for Washington Post termed natural (qtd. in Thompson 282), though he dramatically revised poem's final line, Such as she was, as she become. Thompson describes scene as Frost reached end of his poem: Here he paused, in slow, accentuated tones, gave his altered version of last line: Such as she was, as she become, has become, I--and for this occasion let me change that to--what she will become. Without pausing, he continued to speak ... : and this poem--what I was leading up to--was dedication of poem to President-elect Mr. John Finley. In fact, this was prosy improvisation on previously agreed-upon revision to just one word in final line. At Kennedy's request, Frost had allowed substitution (if only for day, Kennedy had said) of would to will--the final words read such as she will become--which President thought more positive-sounding (278). And apparently, no one caught embarrassing blunder. John Huston Finley Jr., was Harvard professor of Classics; appears Frost simply confused their names. In any case, great poet left rostrum to applause Kennedy was administered his oath of office. This uncharacteristically brief live poetry reading reveals that, for Frost, poem is not steady thing. It can be revised for an occasion. (It can also be site of unadulterated error, something different from revision.) One implication of this is that poems can be understood in dramatically different ways according to their spoken contexts. As Marit MacArthur points out, following Kennedy reading Gift Outright has been interpreted as endorsing triumphant nationalism a celebration of colonialism (63). It's true that this reading corresponds to own gloss of poem around this time as being about Revolutionary War, as he put in November 29, 1960 talk at Dartmouth College (Speaking on Campus 137). Pushing this reading even further, he says poem depicts conflict of good good not good bad. ... The British colonial system was good thing, but we got going ourselves. Some have followed self-analysis. Reading poem as an apology for colonialism, Tyler Hoffman wonders at blindness to the abuses systematic oppression of native peoples quotes Irish writer Tom Paulin, who critiques poem's claim to Manifest Destiny what Hoffman refers to as Frost's dismissal of American Indian culture (207). Yet without framing device of presidential inauguration to guide an interpretation (indeed, Hoffman situates poem in just that context), MacArthur shows through close reading of notebooks, letters, poem's ambiguous final lines that Gift Outright was originally response to New Deal policies (it was written in 1935 though not published until 1942), which Frost notoriously despised, careless attitude of American people toward American landscape (67), native populations. …