Three Books

by Robert Frost

Contents:
A boy's will --
North of Boston --
Mountain interval.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

181 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2000

About the author

Flinty, moody, plainspoken and deep, Robert Frost was one of America's most popular 20th-century poets. Frost was farming in Derry, New Hampshire when, at the age of 38, he sold the farm, uprooted his family and moved to England, where he devoted himself to his poetry. His first two books of verse, A Boy's Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914), were immediate successes. In 1915 he returned to the United States and continued to write while living in New Hampshire and then Vermont. His pastoral images of apple trees and stone fences -- along with his solitary, man-of-few-words poetic voice -- helped define the modern image of rural New England. Frost's poems include "Mending Wall" ("Good fences make good neighbors"), "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" ("Whose woods these are I think I know"), and perhaps his most famous work, "The Road Not Taken" ("Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- / I took the one less traveled by"). Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times: in 1924, 1931, 1937 and 1943. He also served as "Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress" from 1958-59; that position was renamed as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry (or simply Poet Laureate) in 1986.

Frost recited his poem "The Gift Outright" at the 1961 inauguration of John F. Kennedy... Frost attended both Dartmouth College and Harvard, but did not graduate from either school... Frost preferred traditional rhyme and meter in poetry; his famous dismissal of free verse was, "I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down."

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been remiss at the amount of Robert Frost I’ve read. That starts to change now.

[T.L. Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought Robert Frost Three Books from a remainders table several years ago. I don't remember when, but I know the reason was two-fold. One, I love Frost's poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. For those of you who don't recognize the title, I think it's also referred to as the "miles to go before I sleep" poem. Two, I felt driven to study the work of well-known poets. I bought the book without even opening the cover, so imagine my disappointment when I discovered Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening isn't in the book. The book contains three of Frost's books, A Boy's Will, North of Boston, and Mountain Interval. The poems in this book are divine. I read and reread many of them many times. They take the heart and mind on a journey through nature and human reaction. Wind and Window Flower reminded me of fleeting love and lost opportunity. The Vantage Point reminded me of the inner struggle between the need for solitude and the need for connection. Some poems, like Snow and The Self-Seeker, tell stories that seem both complete and incomplete by design. Interestingly, many of the poems seem as if they could have been written today. There is a timeliness in Frost's work that leaves the reader feeling suspended between the past and present ever pointing out what many of us know to be true, humans tend to repeat patterns of behavior and living until something shocks them into change. Frost manages to be weave complexity and simplicity into his words without ever sounding as if he's trying to be impressive.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems I particularly enjoyed:

From: "A Boy's Will" (1913)
To the Thawing Wind


From "North of Boston" (1914)
The Mountain
Home Burial

From "Mountain Interval" (1916)
The Exposed Nest
A Patch of Old Snow
Birches
"Out, Out--"

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many thoughtfully good poems.