Customer Reviews

Robert Frost's Poems

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Frost always set man in an interesting light to nature. This collection catches the flow of his thoughts clearly. It's a fine collection with a lot to offer. People who are not used to Frost will like this. It will serve as a great introduction to the man. I still have a special place in my heart for 'The Gift Outright'. A good deep read. Educational.

I had not read much of Frost since I saw him give a reading at Dartmouth College in the last year of his life. This September, I went back to New Hampshire for the first time in 39 years, visiting my old campus -- and Robert Frost's farm near Franconia Notch. In my bag was Louis Untermeyer's delightful selection of Frost poems, interspersed by his lucid, but unobtrusive commentary.

Frost is a poet who has a very distinctive "voice" in his works. It takes a bit of ferreting out to see how it changes from one poem to another, sometimes substantially, from wry and folksy all the way to devastatingly ironic. To help us with the process, Untermeyer groups several like poems together between blocks of commentary. Each group acted as a separate unit to assist in breaking the text into readable chunks.

Especially with a book of poetry, that is no mean feat. It helped that Untermeyer knew Frost as well as any man alive. The selection is superb, including my favorites: "After Apple-Picking," "The Sound of the Trees," "The Death of the Hired Man," and "Mending Wall."

For the price, there is no better collection. It is Untermeyer's special gift to make it more fun to read.

I would like to make an additional comment in reference to the two previous reviewers. While I certainly agree with their evaluation of Frost's ability and scope, many who hear or read "man and nature" might not make the connection Frost so often made in his works, letters, and life. Frost was constantly drawing the line of demarcation: between our dream relationship with nature and our actually lack thereof. But moreover, the tenuous relationship between science (mankind's reasoning mind) and the greater world (nature's passion and drives).

Frost not only looked at what we gained from "progress," but also what we lost. After all, what is progress? It certainly depends on your view...

In high school we were probably exposed to at least a few (or more) of Robert Frost's poems, commonly the more popular ones such as "The Road Not Taken", "After Apple Picking", or "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." This is a worthy, approachable collection of poetry from Frost, which includes not only the aforementioned popular poems, but some obscure ones as well.

What is particularly resourceful about this collection of Frost's work is that they are categorized into similar areas of thought: there is a section about woods, roads, nature, and common everyday life and people. More importantly, each poem has a small introduction, where the editor has given you a small synopsis about what the poem is about, or some element to look for while reading. It might not seem like much, but this makes reading poetry that more enjoyable.

Frost has a unique ability to depict nature and humanity in the same breath, and to reveal tidbits of philosophy about life in simplistic every day moods. His style is quite easy to read, but sometimes you have to look and "dig" a little for the meaning.

One poem, "The Death of a Hired Man", is interesting because it not only reads as a dialogue, but has elements of a short narrative. When an old hired hand returns, he faces the idea of death as the man and wife discuss his usefulness. There is a rich description of the moon and sky, evidently symbolic of an approaching end to the old man:

"Part of the moon was falling down the west,
Dragging the while sky with it to the hills.
Its light pored softly in her lap. She saw it
And spread her apron to it. She put out her
hand..."

Frost also has a canny aptitude of intermingling simplicity with intricate and profound ideas. For instance, in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," there is a simple rhythm, yet a message that responsibility and duty are significant to mankind. The speaker, who decides to stop in life to admire nature, and see snow falling quietly, knows that he must move on eventually:

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep..."

Whether you are a poet enthusiast, or just someone sampling Frost, this is a great collection of his poems, and at a very good price.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Louis Untermeyer was one of the great champions of American poetry in the twentieth century. His 'Treasury of Great Poems' is one of the best anthologies of English language literature I know. Untermeyer was a special champion and devotee of Robert Frost. He writes an introduction to this collection that is a paean to Frost.He opens by speaking of Frost as a working man , a man who had been a farmer and 'bobbin boy' in a mill. He wants to confute the notion that the poet was an abstract dreamer remote from everyday reality. He then goes out to show how Frost was a technical innovator in his work. According to Untermeyer Frost took the cadences of everyday speech and made them live as poetry. His greatness was too according to Untermeyer that his poetry was imbued with 'real people' who came alive on the page. Untermeyer notes that Frost's first collection 'A Boy's Will' was a poetry that sang. But the second collection, the breakthrough collection 'North of Boston' was a 'poetry that talked'. Frost published those two collections in England and when he came home to America in 1917 he was greeted with recognition and celebration of his work. He would be for the rest of his life a renowned and beloved poet.
This anthology contains the best known - works of Frost. 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' 'The Road Not Taken' 'Birches' The Death of a Hired Man' 'Fire and Ice'
It will truly enable the reader to know the best work of Frost.
If I have a certain reservation about the book it relates to the effort to present Frost as if his work and life were wholly admirable. There is by this time a long literature telling of Frost's personal cruelties to his own family. In a sense he fits another cliche about the artist or literary creator i.e. The totally self- absorbed and obsessed maker of his work who shows little regard or consideration for anyone near him.
Still I would like to conclude this review one small taste of the work of the master.

"And were an epitaph to be my story
I'd have a short one ready for my own
I would have written on my stone
I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

I love this book, it's not enough that it has all of his best work it has some that I wasn't familiar with. I love this book and everything it entails. Very good buy.

I vaguely remember the lectures on Frost in my college Lit classes, but I don't really need to remember them...I have this book.

This book is a great compilation of Frost's poems. I'm not going to review his poetry because his mythical status can basically attest to his genius, so I will focus on the content and format of this book:

The introduction by Louis Untermeyer is great: Untermeyer talks about Frost's early life and his beginnings in poetry. There is commentary (provided by Untermeyer) scattered about the book...it is not intrusive to me, rather it is very insightful into Frost's life and his influences.

Whether you are a student reading about Robert Frost for class or someone interested in great poetry this compilation is a great read for any day.

5/5

What can anyone say? This is Robert Frost; few are his equal. Worth the price, worth the time, a great read.

For the price, there is no better collection. It is Untermeyer's special gift to make it more fun to read.

The author's commentary between each poem can break your pacing but it was a cheap book and every once in a while he has something interesting to say.