Robert Frost

Introduction

Robert Frost

Robert Frost probably has the most name recognition of any American poet ever. His best-known works include “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” both of which have become synonymous with the genre of nature poetry. Frost, though, was much more than just a nature poet. “Home Burial,” for example, deals with overwhelming grief after the death of a child. “Fire and Ice,” while somewhat tongue-in-cheek, considers the apocalyptic end of the world. And some of his poems, such as “The Oven Bird,” are a complex treatment of a difficult rhyme scheme, proving that Frost could technically match anyone in form. Furthermore, Frost helped form the conception of Americans as tough, self-sufficient individuals. This New England native, often called the “Icon of Yankee Values,” remains the quintessential American poet.

Essential Facts

1. Robert Frost won the Pulitzer Prize four times, more than any other poet in history.
2. The often-quoted line “good fences make good neighbors” comes from Frost’s poem “Mending Wall.”
3. Frost resented being seen only as a “nature” poet, often remarking to people that he only wrote two poems in his entire life that were totally nature-based.
4. At the age of 87, a frail Robert Frost delivered a poem to honor John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Although he had written a poem specifically for the occasion, bitter cold and his health caused him to stumble. He ended up reciting flawlessly from memory “The Gift Outright.”
5. Robert Frost died in 1963 at the age of 89, and he had a sense of humor right to the end. His tombstone reads: “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”