venus_reads_'s review
just couldn't get into it, maybe I'll pick it up again one day
davianareads's review against another edition
3.0
It's absolutely beautiful, and I can't get through it. Maybe I will at another time in my life, but right now, I simply cannot.
pennedbymaria's review against another edition
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
The poems I loved from this collection I truly adored. They remain some of the most beautiful poems I have read as of yet. However I could not extend that love to Frost’s prose poems which were littered throughout the collection.
wishanem's review against another edition
5.0
A lot of poetry can be difficult, inaccessible, or confusing. Some of it is just dull. Robert Frost's poems have clear immediate meanings, and sometimes more under the surface too. He does remarkable things with common words, without seeming pretentious or self-congratulatory.
dipanjali's review against another edition
5.0
'Was there even a cause too lost,
Ever a cause that was lost too long,
Or that showed with the lapse of time to vain
For the generous tears of youth and song?'
frost, frost, frost.
nothing more profound than the simplicity of his words.
how do you manage to band together such emotional turmoil from just stringing together 26 alphabets and barely any punctuation?
Ever a cause that was lost too long,
Or that showed with the lapse of time to vain
For the generous tears of youth and song?'
frost, frost, frost.
nothing more profound than the simplicity of his words.
how do you manage to band together such emotional turmoil from just stringing together 26 alphabets and barely any punctuation?
carolynmariereads's review against another edition
4.0
I first studied Robert Frost in one of my poetry classes during a semester in college! I immediately fell in love with his work, and I knew I needed to read a whole collection after the class ended!
Well, here I am!!!!
I just finished this beautiful collection, and I truly can't get over how incredibly talented Frost is! The way he describes a scene and creates such deep metaphors is brilliant!!
There are so many poems of his that I just want to drape over the world like a cozy blanket!
Well, here I am!!!!
I just finished this beautiful collection, and I truly can't get over how incredibly talented Frost is! The way he describes a scene and creates such deep metaphors is brilliant!!
There are so many poems of his that I just want to drape over the world like a cozy blanket!
papi's review against another edition
4.0
I don't read a lot of poetry, but I do have some favorites, and Frost is one of them. I find that his poems often speak to my heart, and resonate with something inside me, sometimes in ways I don't fully understand until much later. It is only on reflection, for example, that his "Good-by and Keep Cold" seems to me to bring some deeper insight into raising children and the need to allow them space to grow from adversity, and trust that God will bring them through.
"Into My Own" reflects what I have often experienced as a consequence of my travels, both physically in other lands and places, and internally, in the journeys through my own heart and mind. Sometimes I feel that others try to follow my paths, but without much success, and with Frost, I can feel to say:
I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear
And even so, though I have seen and learned much in those same travels, they have best served to reinforce my most deeply held convictions and faith, and bring me also to the conclusion that...
They would not find me changed from him they knew -
Only more sure of all I thought was true
I recall one time while on a long motorcycle ride, looking ahead to the gathering storm clouds...a passage from "A Line-Storm Song" brings that memory back powerfully, so that I can almost smell the air, pregnant with the coming rain:
The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,...
Yet later, after ten days gone, I am a block from home, paused a moment in time, sitting astride my machine, and gazing down the street at my home where my family awaits my arrival. Strangely, though I miss them terribly, and can hardly am anxious to hold them in my arms again, yet I also yearn to return to the open road again.
Out through the fields and woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
~~~~
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question "Whither?"
So much of wisdom in "Mending Wall" -- who among us, in one way or another, has not been reluctant to "go beyond his father's saying?"
And among my favorites (though not in this volume) is this passage from "Two Tramps In Mudtime" that describes what I believe to be the profoundest moments of a person's life, those times in which everything has come together in some eternal, fundamental, significant way:
Only where love and need are one
And the work is play for mortal stakes
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future's sakes."
"Into My Own" reflects what I have often experienced as a consequence of my travels, both physically in other lands and places, and internally, in the journeys through my own heart and mind. Sometimes I feel that others try to follow my paths, but without much success, and with Frost, I can feel to say:
I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear
And even so, though I have seen and learned much in those same travels, they have best served to reinforce my most deeply held convictions and faith, and bring me also to the conclusion that...
They would not find me changed from him they knew -
Only more sure of all I thought was true
I recall one time while on a long motorcycle ride, looking ahead to the gathering storm clouds...a passage from "A Line-Storm Song" brings that memory back powerfully, so that I can almost smell the air, pregnant with the coming rain:
The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,...
Yet later, after ten days gone, I am a block from home, paused a moment in time, sitting astride my machine, and gazing down the street at my home where my family awaits my arrival. Strangely, though I miss them terribly, and can hardly am anxious to hold them in my arms again, yet I also yearn to return to the open road again.
Out through the fields and woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
~~~~
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question "Whither?"
So much of wisdom in "Mending Wall" -- who among us, in one way or another, has not been reluctant to "go beyond his father's saying?"
And among my favorites (though not in this volume) is this passage from "Two Tramps In Mudtime" that describes what I believe to be the profoundest moments of a person's life, those times in which everything has come together in some eternal, fundamental, significant way:
Only where love and need are one
And the work is play for mortal stakes
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future's sakes."
trish204's review against another edition
5.0
As usual with poets, I’d like to dedicate most of this review to the life of the poet since that often explains motives and style.
Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26th in 1874 in San Francisco.
His father was first a teacher and later an editor for the "San Francisco Evening Bulletin". In 1885, when Frost was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with just eight dollars (no idea how since even then editors were usually well paid) so he and his mother moved to Massachusetts to live with his grandfather.
His mother was a Scottish immigrant who joined Swedenborgianism and even had Frost baptized. However, he left the church as soon as he became an adult and I couldn’t find any evidence of him ever having been particularly religious.
Although Frost is especially known for his detailed descriptions of nature scenes, he grew up a city boy.
He published his very first poem in his high school’s magazine.
After high school he went to college, but only for about two months before returning home and helping his mother teach some unruly children and working at different jobs such as delivering newspapers or maintaining carbon arc lamps.
His first published work, My Butterfly. An Elegy was sold in 1894 for what would nowadays be over 400$. Nevertheless, when he proposed marriage (probably confident after the successful publication), he was refused because his girlfriend wanted to finish college first (a little fact I love because it means she was not just one of those girls getting a higher education to become a more desireable wife). Frost went on an excursion into the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. When he proposed to his girlfriend again after his return, she had graduaded and accepted so they got married in December 1895.
Two years later he started attending Harvard University but had to leave in 1899 when he became ill.
His mother died of cancer the following year.
His grandfather bought a farm in New Hampshire for Frost and his wife shortly before dying and Frost worked on that farm for 9 years all while writing some of his most famous poems in the morning. After having to admit that he wasn‘t very good at farming, he returned to a teaching position at the Pinkerton Academy from 1906 until 1911 and then at what is now the Plymouth State University.
Apparently, it was difficult for Frost to settle down (at least for long) because in 1912 he moved his family to England (they lived near London).
His first book of poetry was published one year later.
It is noteworthy that Frost’s works were published in the UK first, before becoming popular in his homeland (especially considering that he is one of the most influential poets in American history).
In England he met several important and influential people such as Edward Thomas (who inspired him to one of my favourite poems, The Road Not Taken) and befriended many other poets after the publication of another poetry book in 1914.
During World War I Frost returned to the US and bought yet another farm, again in New Hampshire, where he began his official career in writing, teaching, and lecturing.
This farm remained a summer vacation for his family until 1938 and still exists today as a museum called The Frost Place and poetry conference site.
In the years 1916–20, 1923–24, and 1927–1938 he taught his colloquial approach to language "the sound of sense" at Amherst College.
In 1920 Frost had to commit his younger sister Jeanie to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later.
In 1924 he won the first 4 (!!!) Pulitzer Prizes; he would win another 3 later on.
For 42 years (from 1921 to 1963) Frost spent almost every summer and fall teaching at the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College at its mountain campus at Ripton in Vermont. He is credited as a major influence upon the development of the school and its writing programs, which is probably also why the college now owns and maintains his former Ripton farmstead as a national historic site near the Bread Loaf campus.
Frost's wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, developed breast cancer in 1937 and died of heart failure in 1938.
In 1940 he bought a 5-acre plot in South Miami, Florida, naming it "Pencil Pines"; he spent his winters there for the rest of his life.
His properties also included a house in Cambridge, that today belongs to the National Historic Register.
In 1947 Frost had to commit his daughter Irma to a mental hospital.
Mental illness apparently ran in Frost's family as both he, his mother and his wife suffered from depression (his wife „only“ having bouts of depression however).
In 1960 Frost was awarded a United States Congressional Gold Medal "In recognition of his poetry, which has enriched the culture of the United States and the philosophy of the world." but for some reason received the award from President Kennedy only in 1962 (I guess the reason can be found in the historical context).
Frost was 86 when he read his well-known poem The Gift Outright at the inauguration of President Kennedy in 1961.
Two years later, he died in Boston on January 29, 1963, of complications from prostate surgery.
His epitaph quotes the last line from his poem, "The Lesson for Today“: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.
Hardvard's 1965 alumni directory indicates Frost received an honorary degree there. Although he never graduated from college, Frost received over 40 honorary degrees (amongst others from Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge universities and was the only person to receive 2 even from Darthmouth College).
During his lifetime, the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax in Virginia, the Robert L. Frost School in Lawrence in Massachusetts, and the main library of Amherst College were named after him (usually the naming starts only after the respective artist is dead so that, in itself, is remarkable).
It is also noteworthy how much Robert Frost's personal life was plagued with grief and loss. Apart from the aforementioned tragedies, there is also the story of his six children:
his son Elliot died of cholera when he was only 8; his son Carol committed suicide when he was 38; his daughter Marjorie died as a result of puerperal fever after childbirth, aged 29; and his daughter Elinor Bettina died just three days after her birth in 1907. Only his second child Lesley (1899–1983) and fourth child Irma (1903–1967) outlived their father.
Above all else, Frost is known for portraying „mundane“ scenes in a beautiful way, giving each life event (no matter how small and seemingly insignificant) meaning through the beauty of his words. I mean, you don’t win 7 Pulitzers for writing shopping lists!
I usually prefer poets of times long past but Robert Frost drew me in. And yes, my gateway drug was Fire and Ice when I saw a certain awful YA movie with my little sister. However, ever since that I cannot get enough of this man’s fantastic descriptions of his environment. Considering how much loss he suffered in his life, I’m actually rather surprised that there wasn’t more melancholy in his works.
This little book then collects not all of his work (you couldn’t fit that into a single book) but the most well-known and noteworthy ones. Finding out which to include and which not must be one hell of a job and you probably never manage to satisfy everyone. Nevertheless, I liked the composition here very much.
As I mentioned before, Fire and Ice as well as The Road Not Taken were my favourites and still are, but there are many others in here that made my heart swell. Frost’s works have a special kind of charm that I cannot even name. Maybe it really is the fact that he takes „normal“ moments and turns them into something extraordinary, making the reader appreciate life in all its facets.
Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26th in 1874 in San Francisco.
His father was first a teacher and later an editor for the "San Francisco Evening Bulletin". In 1885, when Frost was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with just eight dollars (no idea how since even then editors were usually well paid) so he and his mother moved to Massachusetts to live with his grandfather.
His mother was a Scottish immigrant who joined Swedenborgianism and even had Frost baptized. However, he left the church as soon as he became an adult and I couldn’t find any evidence of him ever having been particularly religious.
Although Frost is especially known for his detailed descriptions of nature scenes, he grew up a city boy.
He published his very first poem in his high school’s magazine.
After high school he went to college, but only for about two months before returning home and helping his mother teach some unruly children and working at different jobs such as delivering newspapers or maintaining carbon arc lamps.
His first published work, My Butterfly. An Elegy was sold in 1894 for what would nowadays be over 400$. Nevertheless, when he proposed marriage (probably confident after the successful publication), he was refused because his girlfriend wanted to finish college first (a little fact I love because it means she was not just one of those girls getting a higher education to become a more desireable wife). Frost went on an excursion into the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. When he proposed to his girlfriend again after his return, she had graduaded and accepted so they got married in December 1895.
Two years later he started attending Harvard University but had to leave in 1899 when he became ill.
His mother died of cancer the following year.
His grandfather bought a farm in New Hampshire for Frost and his wife shortly before dying and Frost worked on that farm for 9 years all while writing some of his most famous poems in the morning. After having to admit that he wasn‘t very good at farming, he returned to a teaching position at the Pinkerton Academy from 1906 until 1911 and then at what is now the Plymouth State University.
Apparently, it was difficult for Frost to settle down (at least for long) because in 1912 he moved his family to England (they lived near London).
His first book of poetry was published one year later.
It is noteworthy that Frost’s works were published in the UK first, before becoming popular in his homeland (especially considering that he is one of the most influential poets in American history).
In England he met several important and influential people such as Edward Thomas (who inspired him to one of my favourite poems, The Road Not Taken) and befriended many other poets after the publication of another poetry book in 1914.
During World War I Frost returned to the US and bought yet another farm, again in New Hampshire, where he began his official career in writing, teaching, and lecturing.
This farm remained a summer vacation for his family until 1938 and still exists today as a museum called The Frost Place and poetry conference site.
In the years 1916–20, 1923–24, and 1927–1938 he taught his colloquial approach to language "the sound of sense" at Amherst College.
In 1920 Frost had to commit his younger sister Jeanie to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later.
In 1924 he won the first 4 (!!!) Pulitzer Prizes; he would win another 3 later on.
For 42 years (from 1921 to 1963) Frost spent almost every summer and fall teaching at the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College at its mountain campus at Ripton in Vermont. He is credited as a major influence upon the development of the school and its writing programs, which is probably also why the college now owns and maintains his former Ripton farmstead as a national historic site near the Bread Loaf campus.
Frost's wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, developed breast cancer in 1937 and died of heart failure in 1938.
In 1940 he bought a 5-acre plot in South Miami, Florida, naming it "Pencil Pines"; he spent his winters there for the rest of his life.
His properties also included a house in Cambridge, that today belongs to the National Historic Register.
In 1947 Frost had to commit his daughter Irma to a mental hospital.
Mental illness apparently ran in Frost's family as both he, his mother and his wife suffered from depression (his wife „only“ having bouts of depression however).
In 1960 Frost was awarded a United States Congressional Gold Medal "In recognition of his poetry, which has enriched the culture of the United States and the philosophy of the world." but for some reason received the award from President Kennedy only in 1962 (I guess the reason can be found in the historical context).
Frost was 86 when he read his well-known poem The Gift Outright at the inauguration of President Kennedy in 1961.
Two years later, he died in Boston on January 29, 1963, of complications from prostate surgery.
His epitaph quotes the last line from his poem, "The Lesson for Today“: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.
Hardvard's 1965 alumni directory indicates Frost received an honorary degree there. Although he never graduated from college, Frost received over 40 honorary degrees (amongst others from Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge universities and was the only person to receive 2 even from Darthmouth College).
During his lifetime, the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax in Virginia, the Robert L. Frost School in Lawrence in Massachusetts, and the main library of Amherst College were named after him (usually the naming starts only after the respective artist is dead so that, in itself, is remarkable).
It is also noteworthy how much Robert Frost's personal life was plagued with grief and loss. Apart from the aforementioned tragedies, there is also the story of his six children:
his son Elliot died of cholera when he was only 8; his son Carol committed suicide when he was 38; his daughter Marjorie died as a result of puerperal fever after childbirth, aged 29; and his daughter Elinor Bettina died just three days after her birth in 1907. Only his second child Lesley (1899–1983) and fourth child Irma (1903–1967) outlived their father.
Above all else, Frost is known for portraying „mundane“ scenes in a beautiful way, giving each life event (no matter how small and seemingly insignificant) meaning through the beauty of his words. I mean, you don’t win 7 Pulitzers for writing shopping lists!
I usually prefer poets of times long past but Robert Frost drew me in. And yes, my gateway drug was Fire and Ice when I saw a certain awful YA movie with my little sister. However, ever since that I cannot get enough of this man’s fantastic descriptions of his environment. Considering how much loss he suffered in his life, I’m actually rather surprised that there wasn’t more melancholy in his works.
This little book then collects not all of his work (you couldn’t fit that into a single book) but the most well-known and noteworthy ones. Finding out which to include and which not must be one hell of a job and you probably never manage to satisfy everyone. Nevertheless, I liked the composition here very much.
As I mentioned before, Fire and Ice as well as The Road Not Taken were my favourites and still are, but there are many others in here that made my heart swell. Frost’s works have a special kind of charm that I cannot even name. Maybe it really is the fact that he takes „normal“ moments and turns them into something extraordinary, making the reader appreciate life in all its facets.
moaag's review against another edition
3.0
Some poems were really nice and some were not my cup of tea at all.