How did Robert Frost's life influence his poetry?

The span of poet Robert Frost's life (1874–1963) affected his poetry, as both his life and the forms of his poetry embraced both 19th century and more modern 20th century styles. For example, while maintaining the traditional meters of poetry, he embraced a more modern, direct style. He used the traditional meter of poetry, not free verse as modern poets did, and he also kept to traditional line lengths. However, like modern poets, he included dialogue in his poems, in works such as "The Housekeeper," in New England vernacular language. 

In addition, his works came out of the years he spent living in New England, where his family returned in 1884. His ancestors were New Englanders, and he incorporated a sense of the land, particularly the countryside of New Hampshire, into his works. From 1915 on, he spent some of his time at a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire. In poems such as "After Apple-Picking," he is able to endow nature with a sense of wonder and the sublime, as the apples he picked become part of a dream in which "magnified apples appear and disappear." 

Frost also experienced tremendous personal loss. His father died when he was 11, and several of his children died young, as did his wife. In addition, mental illness ran in his family, and he suffered from depression. This sense of loss, along with melancholy, surfaces in his works, such as "Reluctance," in which he speaks of dead leaves scattered on the ground and the end of the season. 

How do Robert Frost's life and personality traits reflect in his poetry?

Robert Frost’s life was reflected in his poetry in a variety of ways.  For instance, from an early age, Frost was raised in New England, and New England, of course, provides the setting and the characters for many of his poems (such as “Out, Out---,” to mention just one example). His education at Lawrence High School, where he was a strong student, helped give him the kind of education and interest in literature that would nourish his later career.  His first poems were published in Lawrence High’s Bulletin, and he eventually became editor of that publication.  Thus, his experience at Lawrence helped contribute to his growing ambitions and self-confidence as a writer.

Frost’s experience working various low-paying jobs (such as millworker and teacher) helped give him an intimate familiarity with the lower- and lower-middle-class society which is often the subject of his poems. His bouts with depression (including a suicide attempt) helped make him familiar with the darker side of human existence, which is also treated in his poems.  His own frustrations in love, especially when courting his wife Elinor, helped provide yet another subject for some of his best-known poems.

In 1897, Frost was able to begin studying at Harvard, an experience which also helped prepare him intellectually to become a serious poet.  However, he had to withdraw from Harvard after two years, and it was now that he decided to become a chicken farmer, thus giving him familiarity with rural life and with the lives of farmers – two more subjects of some of his most significant poems.  One notable poem, for instance, is titled “The Pasture.” Another is called “After Apple-Picking.” Another is titled “The Death of a Hired Man,” while yet another is called “Mending Wall.”  Perhaps the most famous of these poems with rural settings and characters is “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” in which even the horse pulling the speaker’s cart or sled has a significant role:

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

Eventually Frost was given a larger farm by his grandfather, and, when his grandfather died, Frost received enough of an inheritance to allow him to devote more of his time and attention to his writing. He even combined his interest in writing with his practical duties as a farmer by contributing articles about chickens to poultry magazines. Later work as a teacher kept Frost in touch, in a practical way, with the life of the mind, and eventually he and his family were able to settle for a while in England.

During his time in London, Frost became familiar with a number of other American writers, including the highly influential poet Ezra Pound, who championed Frost’s first book. By the time Frost returned to the United States in early 1915, he had begun to establish a reputation as one of America’s most promising poets. 

In all the ways just suggested, then (as well as many more too numerous to mention), Robert Frost’s life clearly affected Robert Frost’s poetry.