Favourite Poet!!

As you can see from my previous poem, the poet I favor is Robert Lee Frost, though more famously known simply as Robert Frost. Why is that so? One reason is that he was one of the first poets I came to know about and therefore he has left an impression on me with "The Road Not Taken", which was also the first poem that I have read since starting literature.

It was noted that mental illnesses ran through the family, as both he and his mother suffered from depression, while his sister was admitted to a mental hospital. He led a life filled with grief as his children and wife started succumbing to different illnesses, with only two children out of six outliving their parents.

An author who wrote on his life quoted that Robert Frost was "a loner who liked company; a poet of isolation who sought a mass audience; a rebel who sought to fit in." He also "traveled more than any poet of his generation to give lectures and readings, even though he remained terrified of public speaking to the end." Despite initially being regarded as an ordinary "farm-poet", Robert Frost eventually gained recognition through his literary works with realistic depictions on rural life and his command of American colloquial speech.

He attended Dartmouth College and Harvard College, but dropped out halfway to support his family. However, he managed to obtain honorary degrees from several well-known colleges including Harvard Oxford, and Cambridge universities at the height of his fame. A high point in his life was when he read out a poem at JFK's inauguration‘s president. The plan was to originally read out a new poem he wrote for the inauguration, entitled "Dedication". However, but due to certain factors regarding his age and How new the poem was to him, he decided to fall back and read another poem, entitled "The Gift Outright".

Three of Robert Frost's more famous poems include:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

This poem is basically about the fact that nothing in the world remains pure and perfect for long.

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

It discusses the end of the world, likening the elemental force of fire with the emotion of desire and hate with ice.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The 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.

This poem was what Robert Frost claimed as one of his favourite poems, saying that it was his "best bid for remembrance". A broadcasting station read out this poem during the report of John F. Kennedy's casket reaching the white house. The person who was reading the poem at that time, Sid Davis, was overcome with emotion when he signed off his report with it.

Sources:

en.wikipedia.org

http://www.google.com/