Steeple Bush

by Robert Frost

Robert Frost's collection of poems is a creative glance into quintessential rural New England life. The author spent his life in the area, and his writing reflects a passionate appreciation. The collections include the much lauded "Fire and Ice," "Nothing Gold Can Stay," and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and the illustrations for the collection were drawn by J.J. Lankes. In 1923, these poems won Frost the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Genres: Poetry, 20th Century, The United States Of America

First published January 1, 1947

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

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frost expresses wit and wisdom in shorter lighter poems. The results vary from excellent to trite.

[Raven]

"Oh I have been often too anxious for rivers/
To leave it to them to get out of their valleys."

"No place to get lost like too far in the distance."

[Hugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars seems generous here - this is not Frost’s best work by any measure, but there are two or three great ones in here (Directive is the best) and those few bump up the score a bit. I think only a couple of poems from here would make a Best of Frost collection.

This marks the 8th volume of his poetry I have read in order of publication since May 2020 and it is also his final one - I have read them all. His earlier volumes are loaded with masterful poetry and later volumes, while sometimes good, are just not consistent and often contain very small 4-line poems and trivial, playful (humorous perhaps?) poetry that didn’t resonate with me.

On a personal note, my uncle and I discussed Frost during his illness and I have savored my journey through Frost’s published works as a way to remember him and keep him present, but it may be better now to do that via other celebrated poetry. This one’s for you, JJGIV.

[Descending Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highlights ~ "Directive" "Too Anxious for Rivers" "To an Ancient" "A Mood Apart" "Innate Helium" "Two Leading Lights" "A Cliff Dwelling" "A Case for Jefferson" "Any Size We Please" and " The Broken Drought ".

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fewer narrative poems and nature poems in this volume, and more philosophical ones. Still delightful, but less immediately enjoyable than the other volumes of Frost I have read.

"A Mood Apart" was my favorite poem in this volume along with "A Young Birch" and "The Ingenuities of Debt."

[Gareth Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short but scintillating collection of poems that contemplate the wisdom of the ancients and seek to locate humanity in a new world where our ingenuity has split the atom and science contends with religion for supremacy in the human heart.
Wonderful!

[Lucas Schmidt]

I liked some of the shorter poems in this collection.

[Josiah Buster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. As others have said, a bit trite.

[Camille Stanford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection is one of Frost's smaller ones, and could be a good place for new readers of Frost's work. I personally noticed the spiritual themes in this book, but there are others as well. I admire how Frost is able to portray religion in an ambiguous way. He writes in an easy to understand, conversational tone that is easily accessible to readers, though there is enough depth in the poems to allow multiple meanings. He creates a thoughtful atmosphere by being both straightforward in his syntax as well as ambiguous in meaning.Even Frost’s mainly non-religious poems mention God or make allusions to the Bible, a few being the Holy Grail and Saint Mark, Holy Wars, and even “ God bless the Dean” (12) from the poem “Lucretius versus the Lake Poets.” These references are more of an aside most of the time, and the way they are presented allows the readers to come to their own conclusions and reactions.

[Timothy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The decline seen in A Witness Tree has become precipitous here in Steeple Bush. Hardly anything to recommend, the only poem I have a modicum of good feeling for is "The Fear of God." A number of the most promising poems perversely veer off and wet the bed in the last couple lines. Includes poems so weak, so charmlessly trite, only a name like Frost could've got them published. Even worse, a handful of poems cross the boundary into the reprehensible ("An Importer" is especially putrid) and I can't even give this book the one or two extra old-time's-sake stars. Kinda weird reading through the Collected Frost - only days ago I was at some sublime heights.

[Craig Werner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty bad Frost. The tendencies towards "wisdom dispensing" and creaky prosody which grew stronger in the later phases of his career render this volume, his penultimate, dispensable. There's one first-rate poem, "Directive," and a couple I marked to come back to: "A Young Birch," "The Fear of God," and "The Broken Drought." As I near the end of my reading of Frost's complete poetry, it's clear to me that his anti-free verse ideology didn't serve him well after mid-career.

[Robert Luff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts very strongly, but descends well below my expectations. When Frost writes about natural creation, his words and ruminations are fascinating and beautiful. But when he tries to be a philosopher on broader subjects, he ends up depressing this reader. This collection starts with some of his strongest from the former and ends with some of his weakest of the latter -- quite a mix of quality.

[Michael Arnold · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frost, not the best Frost maybe, but Frost.