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A Restless Spirit: The Story of Robert Frost
"When I was young, I was so interested in baseball that my family was afraid I'd waste my life and be a pitcher. Later they were afraid I'd waste my life and be a poet. They were right."
198 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 26, 2018
One of the difficulties of a poem is it does not have a built-in mechanism to introduce the reader into the scene, feeling, or occasion that inspired its first line, and by the time the reader finishes the last line, more questions than answers can remain about the “why”, “when”, “who”, and “where”. For the prose writer, there’s no problem with taking a paragraph or two to get the reader situated, even if that involves circling back. But when you have usually only fifty lines tops to work with, that’s a luxury most poems can’t afford. Poems are thus often experienced as glimpses into some greater whole, and a skilled poet of any era uses the tools of the trade to create something satisfying, lasting, and well-shaped out of this. Like a wine into a glass, a poem needs an appropriate form to deliver its aroma.
Everybody knows at least some Robert Frost. Even the most avant-garde shouldn’t be afraid to say he knows a lot. But he is often a byword for accessible, or worse, conventional. But anything more than a quick scan of his Greatest Hits will reveal a great deal of complexity, especially in his prosody, which is the thing that grants a poem its form. While his poems are lauded for capturing the cadence of spoken speech, his long sentences, often cesura-laden, snake across his lines and often feature startling contrasts between syntax and meter. While grappling with his stumbling aimbs, one quickly discovers layers of archness and irony to Frost that prove his dilemmas will never be neatly summarized. The idea of Frost as a force of convention becomes more difficult to sustain. He can be maddeningly ambivalent, his whims prone to sudden turns of conviction. The voice sounds deeply personal but rarely intimate. The speaker, his “I”, comes easy, but “you” and the “we” always require tough compromises.
The Frost reader, thus piqued, has various options. Frost himself was fond of a good story and never did mind an extensive digression. So you may be drawn to biography. If this is your yen then A Restless Spirit is a fantastic choice. Natalie S. Bober skillfully disabuses the reader of any lingering notion that Frost’s poetry originates from a place of convention: the man insisted on living life on his own terms, and at great cost to himself and his family, vehemently rejected more safe and staid paths when they were offered to him. Despite his poetry’s legendary sense of place, he actively combatted the complacency of standing still. Whenever Frost felt a staleness of routine setting in, he uprooted his family and deposited them some place new, mystic, and rustic, even at the cost of living in what we would now recognize as abject poverty.
While much of Frost’s financial hardship was self-inflicted, he was not especially fortunate with respect to personal tragedy, either. Frost outlived his wife and four of his six children, one of whom was stillborn, another who died at age four ( likely the topic of the poem “Home Burial”), another of consumption, and another by suicide. By the time he had ascended to the status of National Sage, much of the richness and comfort of hearth and home had been snatched from him.
This is of course not to say Rob (as his friends called him) didn’t have many advantages. Bober rightly states that his brilliant and talented wife would have made a fine poet in her own right had she not committed herself to role of supporter, advisor, daycare worker, and manual laborer. She also details the financial support he enjoyed from his paternal grandfather. Bober shows how Frost is charming, determined, and effective in the cocktail circuit, making easy connections among the East Coast intellectual elite. While Bober is not interested in privilege scorekeeping, it’s obvious that men from other backgrounds would not get as many do-overs and second chances as the young Frost did.
The contemporary reader may also wonder if a poet of Frost’s talent appeared today whether he or she could attempt a similar project. Frost’s muse seemed to demand of him the rustic seclusion of a pre-Interstate Northern New England with months at a time where he could observe the seasons and immerse himself in the world of his children. Twenty-first century life is simply too connected and too interrupted. Furthermore we live in an era where the quantity of good literature available from nearly every era and nearly every culture has has never been greater but interest and attention has never been lower. Would a Frost today simply be ignored? Recently passed superstars of English verse like Heaney and Angelou give us hope that the era of the national poet has not ended forever.
Returning to Frost’s poetry after Bober’s book doesn't make him suddenly any easier. But she does provide a treasury of biographical toeholds that can help situate the reader and make the shape of each poem easier to appreciate. The book’s large, glossy format accommodates handsome reproductions of photographs documenting key people and places. One poem is reprinted at the beginning of each chapter and she servers as a guide to the life that inspired it. Like her subject, Bober is a sensitive and skillful observer.
Everybody knows at least some Robert Frost. Even the most avant-garde shouldn’t be afraid to say he knows a lot. But he is often a byword for accessible, or worse, conventional. But anything more than a quick scan of his Greatest Hits will reveal a great deal of complexity, especially in his prosody, which is the thing that grants a poem its form. While his poems are lauded for capturing the cadence of spoken speech, his long sentences, often cesura-laden, snake across his lines and often feature startling contrasts between syntax and meter. While grappling with his stumbling aimbs, one quickly discovers layers of archness and irony to Frost that prove his dilemmas will never be neatly summarized. The idea of Frost as a force of convention becomes more difficult to sustain. He can be maddeningly ambivalent, his whims prone to sudden turns of conviction. The voice sounds deeply personal but rarely intimate. The speaker, his “I”, comes easy, but “you” and the “we” always require tough compromises.
The Frost reader, thus piqued, has various options. Frost himself was fond of a good story and never did mind an extensive digression. So you may be drawn to biography. If this is your yen then A Restless Spirit is a fantastic choice. Natalie S. Bober skillfully disabuses the reader of any lingering notion that Frost’s poetry originates from a place of convention: the man insisted on living life on his own terms, and at great cost to himself and his family, vehemently rejected more safe and staid paths when they were offered to him. Despite his poetry’s legendary sense of place, he actively combatted the complacency of standing still. Whenever Frost felt a staleness of routine setting in, he uprooted his family and deposited them some place new, mystic, and rustic, even at the cost of living in what we would now recognize as abject poverty.
While much of Frost’s financial hardship was self-inflicted, he was not especially fortunate with respect to personal tragedy, either. Frost outlived his wife and four of his six children, one of whom was stillborn, another who died at age four ( likely the topic of the poem “Home Burial”), another of consumption, and another by suicide. By the time he had ascended to the status of National Sage, much of the richness and comfort of hearth and home had been snatched from him.
This is of course not to say Rob (as his friends called him) didn’t have many advantages. Bober rightly states that his brilliant and talented wife would have made a fine poet in her own right had she not committed herself to role of supporter, advisor, daycare worker, and manual laborer. She also details the financial support he enjoyed from his paternal grandfather. Bober shows how Frost is charming, determined, and effective in the cocktail circuit, making easy connections among the East Coast intellectual elite. While Bober is not interested in privilege scorekeeping, it’s obvious that men from other backgrounds would not get as many do-overs and second chances as the young Frost did.
The contemporary reader may also wonder if a poet of Frost’s talent appeared today whether he or she could attempt a similar project. Frost’s muse seemed to demand of him the rustic seclusion of a pre-Interstate Northern New England with months at a time where he could observe the seasons and immerse himself in the world of his children. Twenty-first century life is simply too connected and too interrupted. Furthermore we live in an era where the quantity of good literature available from nearly every era and nearly every culture has has never been greater but interest and attention has never been lower. Would a Frost today simply be ignored? Recently passed superstars of English verse like Heaney and Angelou give us hope that the era of the national poet has not ended forever.
Returning to Frost’s poetry after Bober’s book doesn't make him suddenly any easier. But she does provide a treasury of biographical toeholds that can help situate the reader and make the shape of each poem easier to appreciate. The book’s large, glossy format accommodates handsome reproductions of photographs documenting key people and places. One poem is reprinted at the beginning of each chapter and she servers as a guide to the life that inspired it. Like her subject, Bober is a sensitive and skillful observer.
March 1, 2024
A very nice and simply written biography of Robert Frost. To those unfamiliar with his life, it will give a good background to some of his best works.
May 24, 2020
Picked this up on a whim because I am not one to read biographies, but given that I knew next to nothing about Robert Frost and the book was of manageable length, I gave it a try. It turns out that not only was Frost's growth as a poet interesting to read about, but the time period his life took place in was pleasantly revealing as well. I also liked the author's choice of interspersing relevant poems throughout the book, particularly at the beginning of chapters such that a poem hints at what that chapter may be about. I felt that the biography contained just enough poetry to remind the reader of the subject's specialty, but it didn't hijack the flow of the story of Frost's life so much as to make it noticeable.
Even if one isn't necessarily itching to know all about a poet from the early 20th century, like I was, I felt that this book was a great read to pick up, learn a few things about a very impressive person in history, and finish in a manageable amount of time.
Even if one isn't necessarily itching to know all about a poet from the early 20th century, like I was, I felt that this book was a great read to pick up, learn a few things about a very impressive person in history, and finish in a manageable amount of time.
May 8, 2016
This biography of Frost details the events of his frequently unhappy life (insecure, restless), his deep love for Elinor, his wife, and his children, and the way all of life was woven into his poetry.
Each chapter began with a poem, and a line from that poem served as the title of the ensuing chapter, with the chapters being chronologically ordered. Well-written, readable, most interesting!
Frost was a man with the poetic temperament, melancholy, given to roaming, feeling deeply, smitten by conversations and the sound of words. His philosophy of poetry: A poem should “begin in delight and end in wisdom . . . . It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
Frost won the Pulitzer Prize four times, received numerous honorary degrees and awards. I first saw him when he read a poem at the inauguration of John Kennedy in 1961. He is definitely a New England poet, having been born in SF, but having lived in Vermont, MA, and NH. He was often “poet in residence” at several colleges, with an unorthodox approach to teaching: forget the books, THINK!
Each chapter began with a poem, and a line from that poem served as the title of the ensuing chapter, with the chapters being chronologically ordered. Well-written, readable, most interesting!
Frost was a man with the poetic temperament, melancholy, given to roaming, feeling deeply, smitten by conversations and the sound of words. His philosophy of poetry: A poem should “begin in delight and end in wisdom . . . . It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
Frost won the Pulitzer Prize four times, received numerous honorary degrees and awards. I first saw him when he read a poem at the inauguration of John Kennedy in 1961. He is definitely a New England poet, having been born in SF, but having lived in Vermont, MA, and NH. He was often “poet in residence” at several colleges, with an unorthodox approach to teaching: forget the books, THINK!
September 17, 2014
This was a wonderful story. I don't know who deserves more credit --- Mr. Frost, for the life he lived, or Ms. Bober, for her way a telling his story. I have previously read Ms. Bober's biography of Abigail Adams, but found this book to be much more enjoyable. This one seemed lighter, not so bogged down with details, yet still so complete. Robert Frost endured much personal tragedies in his life, but continued to be driven by a desire to just be himself. His pure desire for learning and knowledge caused him to walk away from traditional forms of schooling (as a student and as a teacher) on several occasions. He was not going for a degree and the prestige that goes with that, but for knowledge.
The Frost family had to deal with mental and physical illnesses, but he fought his own demons through to the end. He adored his wife. He counseled all of his children to honor marriage. He was a loving grandfather. Robert Frost may be added to my list of "If you could have 10 people, living or dead, to a dinner party..."
The Frost family had to deal with mental and physical illnesses, but he fought his own demons through to the end. He adored his wife. He counseled all of his children to honor marriage. He was a loving grandfather. Robert Frost may be added to my list of "If you could have 10 people, living or dead, to a dinner party..."
February 1, 2012
A Restless Spirit was a pick-up at a library sale a couple of years ago that I finally got around to reading. It's a Young Adult non-fiction book about my favorite poet, Robert Frost. I really liked the way this story was told, in that it didn't talk down to younger readers but didn't go into depth with things that could be confusing like poetry interpretation and analysis. Throughout the book Frost's poetry is sprinkled and each chapter is a line from one of his poems. Like Frost's poetry, the story of Frost's life is a beautiful mix of humor and adventure and sadness. I enjoyed this book very much.
April 10, 2010
This was an eye-opening sojourn into the poet's life. An easy, enjoyable, entertaining, and educational read. I was prepared to accept his fallibility and "not be too disappointed" in him; instead, I felt and new respect and admiration for him, and an increased love of his poetry.
April 12, 2012
I knew Robert Frost had many heartbreaks throughout his life, but had no idea the full extent until I read this book. I loved learning more about him and seeing how despite the difficulties he faced, he clung to his dreams and his family and he chose happiness.
May 3, 2008
I like biographies for younger people, the pics and the stories. He had a painful but rich life and the author weaves the poems into the story. Well done. Makes me miss New England a bit.
October 22, 2008
This a good book. Natalie S. Bober is always my first choice for biography, because she is INCREDIBLY thurogh.
December 7, 2017
An interesting story about a guy who in reality spent only a small part of his life in VT but is thought quite highly of by Vermonters.
June 3, 2010
Robert Frost has an interesting life. This book included lots of pictures and was just the right length.
April 30, 2012
A intimate glimpse into the heart of a non-conformist who did not shy away from the pain and beauty of life.
November 7, 2012
It was a pretty good story
March 29, 2013
Great short bio. Lots of great pictures. Not the critical bio for a scholar, but great for a layman.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews