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Nature's Writers Trail: Frost

Library Guide for the Nature Writer's Trail.

Robert Frost
March 26, 1874 - January 29, 1963

Robert Frost used poems to examine complex philosophical and social themes, his great work in poetry mostly included settings from the rural life in New England in early 20th century. Frost taught English at Amherst College, Massachusetts in 1916-1920, 1923-1924 and in 1927-1938; From 1921 to 1963, he spent almost every summer teaching English at the Bread Loaf School of English in Middlebury College; In 1939 he started the first of three years he taught at Harvard as the Ralph Waldo Emerson Fellow in Poetry. When the United States Senate passed resolutions honoring Frost's 75th and 85th birthdays, it was clear that Frost belonged to the whole nation. When he died in 1963, his farm home at Ripton, Vermont, was bought in 1966 by Middlebury College to be kept as a memorial to the great poet.

  • "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
  • "These woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."
  • "My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors"."
  • "The ear does it. The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader."
  • "I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

  • He dropped out of college twice (Dartmouth College & Harvard University).
  • "The Road Not Taken" is often read at high school and college graduations as a reminder to forge new paths, but Frost never intended it to be taken so seriously—he wrote the poem as a private joke for his friend Edward Thomas.
  • John F. Kennedy invited Frost to do a reading at his 1961 inauguration; he recited "The Gift Outright," by heart.
  • His poem "Fire and Ice" influenced the title and other aspects of George R. R. Martin's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

  • The Gift Outright
  • Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
  • Evening Birches
  • Mending Wall
  • The Road Not Taken
  • Nothing Gold Can Stay

  • He won the Pulitzer Prize four times:
    • 1924 for New Hampshire: A Poem With Notes and Grace Notes
    • 1931 for Collected Poems
    • 1937 for A Further Range
    • 1943 for A Witness Tree
  • On July 22, 1961, Frost was named Poet Laureate of Vermont.
  • Frost was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 31 times.

Mountain Interval

Mountain Interval is a 1916 poetry collection written by American writer Robert Frost. It is Frost's third poetic volume and was published by Henry Holt.

West-Running Brook

West-Running Brook is a book of poetry by Robert Frost, written in 1923 and published by Henry Holt and Co. in 1928, and containing woodcuts by J. J. Lankes.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (Franklin County Public Library)

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a poem written in 1922 by Robert Frost, and published in 1923 in his New Hampshire volume. Imagery, personification, and repetition are prominent in the work. In a letter to Louis Untermeyer, Frost called it "my best bid for remembrance".

Seasons, Poems (Franklin County Public Library)

This selection of four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Robert Frost's verse is coupled with the breathtaking landscape photographs of Christopher Burkett. Seasons is a lavish volume that ambles through the year with beauty and simplicity.

Poetry for Young People: Robert Frost (Franklin County Public Library)

Use all your senses—not just your eyes—when you read Robert Frost’s remarkable poems. Your own world will quickly melt away as Frost draws you into winter wonderlands, forests, and fields. More than twenty-five of the Pulitzer-Prize winner’s best-loved poems are included, along with stunning illustrations, in this introduction to the work of one of America’s greatest poets.

Robert Frost: A Tribute to the Source (Franklin County Public Library)

Fifty-three of Frost's outstanding poems are combined with forty-four color photographs and a biographical text to illuminate the connections between the poet and New England and the natural sources of his inspiration.