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New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a volume of poems written by Robert Frost, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. The titular poem is the longest, and it has cross-references to 14 of the following poems. These are the "Notes" in the book title. The "Grace Notes" are the 30 final poems. Contained in this collection are some of Frost's best known works, such as "Fire and Ice", "Nothing Gold Can Stay", and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".
120 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1923
About the author
Robert Frost
854 books4,744 followersFlinty, 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."
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."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 160 reviews
January 9, 2020
Reading Road Trip 2020
Current location: New Hampshire
I feel so very Charlotte Brontë-ish right now, writing this review with pneumonia and two partially collapsed lungs (no tuberculosis, yet), but this winter in Colorado just hasn't agreed with me.
Though, figuratively speaking, I'm not in Colorado, am I? I'm in New Hampshire, after leaving behind Maine last week. (And it's damn cold here, too).
I struggled, almost ridiculously, over who was going to be the writer to represent the state of New Hampshire: John Irving or Robert Frost.
Irving is a New Hampshire native who has made a career of writing novels set in New England, and Frost, though born in the state of California, is the unofficial spokesperson for the New England landscape, having brought so much of it to life in his poetry.
I sat coughing over Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire and Frost's New Hampshire, almost driving myself nuts over which book I would choose to read and review, until I came across these lines in the title poem of Frost's “New Hampshire:”
No wonder poets sometimes have to seem
So much more business-like than business men.
Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.
Mr. Frost reminded me that he had held two thankless and underpaid jobs in his lifetime: farmer and poet. I was inclined then to choose him over John Irving, who has been rewarded greatly by having so many of his quirky novels turned into films.
So, the farmer-poet won, and we got off to a s-l-o-w start. This 1924 Pulitzer Prize winning poetry was published when Frost was 39 and clearly having sex in the missionary position 66% of the time.
This collection is divided into three sections, and the first one, “New Hampshire,” is 14 pages long and I had to read it three times before I even understood it. Yawn.
The second section, “Notes” is filled with poems that you've never heard of, each poem is an average length of three pages, and though I was dazzled by Frost's ability to write metered poems that would have made The Bard blush, they were, again, a snooze-fest.
Then came the third section: Grace Notes. Grace Notes is a gathering of some of Frost's most brilliant and most popular poems. Even if you haven't read much poetry in your life, titles here would still be familiar to you: “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and “Fire and Ice.”
The poems in Grace Notes are. . . humbling, inspiring, and transcendent. I can not recommend them enough, even for the casual reader of poetry.
My new favorite is “To Earthward:”
Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air
That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of—was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Down hill at dusk?
I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.
I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.
Now no joy but lacks salt
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain
Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.
When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,
The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.
Current location: New Hampshire
I feel so very Charlotte Brontë-ish right now, writing this review with pneumonia and two partially collapsed lungs (no tuberculosis, yet), but this winter in Colorado just hasn't agreed with me.
Though, figuratively speaking, I'm not in Colorado, am I? I'm in New Hampshire, after leaving behind Maine last week. (And it's damn cold here, too).
I struggled, almost ridiculously, over who was going to be the writer to represent the state of New Hampshire: John Irving or Robert Frost.
Irving is a New Hampshire native who has made a career of writing novels set in New England, and Frost, though born in the state of California, is the unofficial spokesperson for the New England landscape, having brought so much of it to life in his poetry.
I sat coughing over Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire and Frost's New Hampshire, almost driving myself nuts over which book I would choose to read and review, until I came across these lines in the title poem of Frost's “New Hampshire:”
No wonder poets sometimes have to seem
So much more business-like than business men.
Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.
Mr. Frost reminded me that he had held two thankless and underpaid jobs in his lifetime: farmer and poet. I was inclined then to choose him over John Irving, who has been rewarded greatly by having so many of his quirky novels turned into films.
So, the farmer-poet won, and we got off to a s-l-o-w start. This 1924 Pulitzer Prize winning poetry was published when Frost was 39 and clearly having sex in the missionary position 66% of the time.
This collection is divided into three sections, and the first one, “New Hampshire,” is 14 pages long and I had to read it three times before I even understood it. Yawn.
The second section, “Notes” is filled with poems that you've never heard of, each poem is an average length of three pages, and though I was dazzled by Frost's ability to write metered poems that would have made The Bard blush, they were, again, a snooze-fest.
Then came the third section: Grace Notes. Grace Notes is a gathering of some of Frost's most brilliant and most popular poems. Even if you haven't read much poetry in your life, titles here would still be familiar to you: “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and “Fire and Ice.”
The poems in Grace Notes are. . . humbling, inspiring, and transcendent. I can not recommend them enough, even for the casual reader of poetry.
My new favorite is “To Earthward:”
Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air
That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of—was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Down hill at dusk?
I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.
I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.
Now no joy but lacks salt
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain
Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.
When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,
The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.
April 20, 2024
A Bad Day For Robert Frost
Alone I step in a dark wood,
With fallen flakes upon my hood,
Two feet of snow on every track
And oh my belly craving food.
There is a pain in my poor back.
I don’t know if I’ll make it back
To my warm cabin by the stream
Before another sneeze attack.
Goddamn it’s cold, like a bad dream.
Now where'd I put that blasted cream?
My hands and lips are chapped as hell;
And who will hear me if I scream?
Ah there it goes the dinner bell.
Din-dins ready, and just as well.
These lines are worthless I can tell,
These lines are worthless I can tell.
April 27, 2019
Published in 1923, New Hampshire is Frost's fourth published collection. Ten years after his first collection, A Boy's Will, and seven after his previous one, Mountain Interval. The years between that volume and New Hampshire were most of Robert Frost's fifth decade. In 1916 he was made an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard. This may have convinced him that he could really make a career of full-time writing, supplemented by teaching and lecturing; the latter activities were commenced at Amherst College in Massachusetts .
So obviously these were busy years in his life. I got the idea that by this time Frost had run out of unpublished poems, and perhaps had to work harder (on a tighter schedule) to produce what he thought worthy of publication.
As I read through these poems, it gradually dawned on me that this might be the best volume of Frost yet. (In fact New Hampshire did win the first of four Pulitzer Prizes that he received.) Perhaps this had something to do with the teaching that he did in these years – both in the thought required to prepare lectures, and the input he must have received, to at least some extent, from the younger men in his classes.
It appears to me that the poems sort of divide themselves into two groups. The first being those "story-poems" that were so prominent in his earlier volumes, and the second being poems whose focus is on things such as nature, the seasons, weather – that whole sort of subject matter that many, including me, always have associated with Frost. (This type of material is there in earlier collections, of course – but not so insistently as in the later part of this volume.)
Those poems earlier in the volume that bring to mind Frost's previous story-poems nevertheless seemed to me to be somehow different – fewer long ones, not so much conversations-in-a-poem, nor that feeling of reading fiction-as-poetry – so many just having something new about them, something not explored by Frost before. The opening poem, "New Hampshire", is by far (12 pages) the longest in the volume, and by being first it almost seems to be announcing, "Here's one like I used to write."
A nice example of these earlier poems is "Wild Grapes". It's a bit long to quote, but it's a first person narrative by a woman remembering an incident that happened when she was five, of being rescued from a birch tree (in which she was picking grapes) by her older brother. It's very funny, and yet touching to. It concludes,
This poem is followed by "Two Witches", with the "chapters": I. The Witch of Coos & II. The Pauper Witch of Graton". Both speak to the reader directly, and seem even to be speaking to the poet. The first is book-ended with statements by the poet himself. First,
"I stayed the night for shelter at a farm
Behind the mountain, with a mother and son,
Two old-believers. They did all the talking."
The next four pages contain "MOTHER." speech, followed by "SON." speech, together relating the story of a witch who lives in their house.
And at the end,
"She hadn't found the finger bone that she wanted
Among the buttons poured out in her lap.
I verified the name next morning: Tofille.
The rural letter box said Tofille Lajway."
"The Pauper Witch of Grafton" is a single run-on stanza, most of four pages, of the woman speaking directly to the reader.
the other
A few poems further on they suddenly become very short, most occupying less than a page. One after the other, these last twenty pieces are littered (by me) with exclamation points, stars, complimentary comments. Their typical subject matter of specific aspects of the natural world really hit the spot for me. Here's a couple.
Too many to quote, I'll just let it go with the final one.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: The Open Boat and Other Stories Stephen Crane
Next review: West Texas
Older review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Previous library review: Mountain Interval
Next library review: West Running Brook
So obviously these were busy years in his life. I got the idea that by this time Frost had run out of unpublished poems, and perhaps had to work harder (on a tighter schedule) to produce what he thought worthy of publication.
As I read through these poems, it gradually dawned on me that this might be the best volume of Frost yet. (In fact New Hampshire did win the first of four Pulitzer Prizes that he received.) Perhaps this had something to do with the teaching that he did in these years – both in the thought required to prepare lectures, and the input he must have received, to at least some extent, from the younger men in his classes.
It appears to me that the poems sort of divide themselves into two groups. The first being those "story-poems" that were so prominent in his earlier volumes, and the second being poems whose focus is on things such as nature, the seasons, weather – that whole sort of subject matter that many, including me, always have associated with Frost. (This type of material is there in earlier collections, of course – but not so insistently as in the later part of this volume.)
Those poems earlier in the volume that bring to mind Frost's previous story-poems nevertheless seemed to me to be somehow different – fewer long ones, not so much conversations-in-a-poem, nor that feeling of reading fiction-as-poetry – so many just having something new about them, something not explored by Frost before. The opening poem, "New Hampshire", is by far (12 pages) the longest in the volume, and by being first it almost seems to be announcing, "Here's one like I used to write."
A nice example of these earlier poems is "Wild Grapes". It's a bit long to quote, but it's a first person narrative by a woman remembering an incident that happened when she was five, of being rescued from a birch tree (in which she was picking grapes) by her older brother. It's very funny, and yet touching to. It concludes,
My brother said: "Don't you weigh anything?
Try to weigh something next time, so you won't
Be run off with by birch trees into space."
It wasn't my not weighing anything
So much as my not knowing anything –
My brother had been nearer right before.
I had not taken the first step in knowledge;
I had not learned to let go with the hands,
As still I have not learned to with the heart,
And have no wish to with the heart – nor need,
That I can see. The mind – is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind –
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.
This poem is followed by "Two Witches", with the "chapters": I. The Witch of Coos & II. The Pauper Witch of Graton". Both speak to the reader directly, and seem even to be speaking to the poet. The first is book-ended with statements by the poet himself. First,
"I stayed the night for shelter at a farm
Behind the mountain, with a mother and son,
Two old-believers. They did all the talking."
The next four pages contain "MOTHER." speech, followed by "SON." speech, together relating the story of a witch who lives in their house.
And at the end,
"She hadn't found the finger bone that she wanted
Among the buttons poured out in her lap.
I verified the name next morning: Tofille.
The rural letter box said Tofille Lajway."
"The Pauper Witch of Grafton" is a single run-on stanza, most of four pages, of the woman speaking directly to the reader.
the other
A few poems further on they suddenly become very short, most occupying less than a page. One after the other, these last twenty pieces are littered (by me) with exclamation points, stars, complimentary comments. Their typical subject matter of specific aspects of the natural world really hit the spot for me. Here's a couple.
FRAGMENTARY BLUE
Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?
Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet) –
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.
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.
Too many to quote, I'll just let it go with the final one.
THE NEED OF BEING VERSED
IN COUNTRY THINGS
The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.
The barn opposed across the way,
That would have joined the house in flame
Had it been the will of the wind, was left
To bear forsaken the place's name.
No more it opened with all one end
For teams that came by the stony road
To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs
And brush the mow with the summer load.
And birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in.
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.
Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm;
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.
For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: The Open Boat and Other Stories Stephen Crane
Next review: West Texas
Older review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Previous library review: Mountain Interval
Next library review: West Running Brook
March 8, 2022
New Hampshire was the fifteenth book in my October poetry project. It begins with the title poem, which spans multiple tedious pages and seems to serve mostly as a vehicle for a final cheap joke about New Hampshire. But the rest of the collection is so good that you're like, "Oh right, Robert Frost. Famous for a reason."
June 12, 2023
This is the first collection of Frost's poetry I've read and I found much to enjoy. The titular long poem that serves as the first section is an extended argument for New Hampshire being one of the two best states in the nation, the other being Vermont, and it's full of regional detail and humor that reminds me of Twain.
A state producing precious metals, stones,
And-writing; none of these except perhaps
The precious literature in quantity
Or quality to worry the producer
About disposing of it. Do you know,
Considering the market, there are more
Poems produced than any other thing?
The second section, "Notes", contains a baker's dozen of mid-length poems with a wider range of style and theme, again often spiced with wit.
If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long
To get so we had no one left to live with.
"Grace Notes" completes the book with 30 short poems, including several of Frost's best-known and most-anthologized, e.g. "Fire and Ice", "Nothing Gold Can Stay", and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".
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.
A state producing precious metals, stones,
And-writing; none of these except perhaps
The precious literature in quantity
Or quality to worry the producer
About disposing of it. Do you know,
Considering the market, there are more
Poems produced than any other thing?
The second section, "Notes", contains a baker's dozen of mid-length poems with a wider range of style and theme, again often spiced with wit.
If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long
To get so we had no one left to live with.
"Grace Notes" completes the book with 30 short poems, including several of Frost's best-known and most-anthologized, e.g. "Fire and Ice", "Nothing Gold Can Stay", and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".
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.
January 25, 2020
It has been a very long time, freshman year of college, since I picked up a book of poetry. The book did not disappoint, my favorites were in the section of Grace Notes.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's green is first 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.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's green is first 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.
June 24, 2020
Wow. WOW. They're not all good, but the ones that are - wow.
December 25, 2022
I feel like a philistine. Robert Frost’s New Hampshire won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924. And it does contain some amazing poems, including Frost’s most famous, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “Fire and Ice.” And I loved some of the other poems, too, especially “The Star Splitter.” But so many of the poems were just droning.
Mr. Frost, I know it’s me, not you. Forgive me.
Mr. Frost, I know it’s me, not you. Forgive me.
April 17, 2021
Mesmerised. It echoes so beautifully that i never want to lose this enchanted aftertaste or read anything else ever again
December 15, 2009
Dust of Snow
by: Robert Frost
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
by: Robert Frost
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
November 27, 2022
I read this collection of poems because my husband lived in New Hampshire his entire childhood, and he has run thousands of miles through its land (countless times by Frost’s house!). Though I’ve spent some time in the state, I wanted to get a greater sense of the place from the perspective of Frost. He is a both a delightful storyteller and pleasant poet on the things of nature. This collection is a good mix of both of these kinds of writing.
Wild Grapes is probably my favorite.
Wild Grapes is probably my favorite.
August 20, 2021
Before reading this collection of poems centered around "New Hampshire" as the setting, I only knew of Robert Frost from his poem "The Road Not Taken", which was taught in high school I believe and which I enjoyed. I admit I was looking for something similar, and while the diction is similar the subject of these New Hampshire poems are more light hearted and comedic in nature than what I was expecting.
"New Hampshire" has gotten good reviews because it does a good job of representing the people of that state at the time he was writing. There are characters of woodsmen and the working class, and I think many people who enjoy authors like Jack London and Laura Ingalls Wilder would enjoy this set of poems. I just didn't feel like these poems were deep or insightful in the way I prefer poetry to be, but I recognize the straight forward approach Robert Frost has to poetry makes his work accessible to many who would not otherwise choose to read poetry. There was one or two poems that included instances of animal abuse in a logger/Paul Bunyan type of way, like you would see in the movie "Spirit", so while I get that this kind of thrashing beasts of burden was accepted in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, it still disturbed me.
Overall, I respect Robert Frost as a renown American poet and I am glad that his works are still classic and spread widely today. However, I did not personally enjoy these stories a lot, and do not think I will want to listen to them again. I also felt that these poems might be more nostalgic to those who currently or have lived in New Hampshire, which I have not.
"New Hampshire" has gotten good reviews because it does a good job of representing the people of that state at the time he was writing. There are characters of woodsmen and the working class, and I think many people who enjoy authors like Jack London and Laura Ingalls Wilder would enjoy this set of poems. I just didn't feel like these poems were deep or insightful in the way I prefer poetry to be, but I recognize the straight forward approach Robert Frost has to poetry makes his work accessible to many who would not otherwise choose to read poetry. There was one or two poems that included instances of animal abuse in a logger/Paul Bunyan type of way, like you would see in the movie "Spirit", so while I get that this kind of thrashing beasts of burden was accepted in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, it still disturbed me.
Overall, I respect Robert Frost as a renown American poet and I am glad that his works are still classic and spread widely today. However, I did not personally enjoy these stories a lot, and do not think I will want to listen to them again. I also felt that these poems might be more nostalgic to those who currently or have lived in New Hampshire, which I have not.
August 27, 2018
Frost uses rural images and tales to evoke a steady perseverance - neither prude nor puke - in the face of finitude, indifference, and uncertainty.
March 30, 2019
My introduction to poetry in middle school primarily consisted of a few poems and poets....there was e.e. cummings that I remember, Longfellow for sure, I vaguely remember an introduction to Dickinson and I definitely remember Robert Frost. I think we all had that introduction to Frost by way of The Road not Taken, but I remember reading ahead in our textbook and finding Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. It immediately became my favorite.
The poem spoke to me....I was a kid who liked to wander into any nearby forest for lengths of time and most of the time alone. It was the nature thing but it was also just liking to be alone in the woods in the deep quiet, lost in my thoughts. For some reason, I also wrapped this poem up in my head with The Waltons. Do you remember that first movie that the Waltons tv show spun off from? It was called The Homecoming: A Christmas Story and I remember Olivia Walton (played by Patricia Neal in the movie) looking out of the house at the snowstorm, worrying about John Walton making it home for Christmas from another part of the state. So...snow, deep quiet forest walks, anxiety about the future...you can see how it all comes together in my middle school mind...right?
Fast forward about 15 years and this poem remained my favorite poem despite having read very little poetry by Robert Frost other than this and The Road Not Taken. In fact, I read very little poetry, period. One day, while sitting in the undergraduate library at UofM, doing anything but what I really needed to do, which was write a paper, I decided to look for a book of Robert Frost's poetry. In the course of looking for one of his books I found a review/reading of the poem, Stopping by Woods, and found out the poem was really about death. That was pretty eye opening to me because I always took the poem so literally but after reading the review and re-reading the poem, I could see how a close reading of the poem could be interpreted this way.
This year, New Hampshire, the book of poems by Frost that Stopping by Woods originally appeared in came into the public domain. When I read this, I knew I would want to find a copy of it and read it...not just that poem but the whole book. Finally, now that I am reading poetry on a regular basis I should at least read a complete book of poems by Frost instead of only the two which seem to be on every middle school kid's syllabus.
I am glad I did but also, the high esteem which I had held for Robert Frost for so long has been lessened a bit...I can't say that he is my favorite poet any longer, nor can I say that Stopping by Woods is my favorite poem, but it is still up there. What I did find, however, is that there are several other poems in New Hampshire that I really liked. The fore section of the book consists mainly of longer poems including, Maple and Paul's Wife, both of which, were very good but too long to quote here. There were also a number of shorter poems that, along with Stopping by Woods, comprised the latter half of the book. Here is one that I liked...Frost uses depictions of snow in many of his poems...
Dust of Snow
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
In a Disused Graveyard is also very good as is The Onset, a looming and vivid description of a winter storm and how it burys the forest, people working outside and the village...
The Onset
Always the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend....
I think you get the picture, snow, death, dark woods, "gives up his errand, and lets death descend"...pretty common themes in Frost's poetry. Not that I don't like it, I do. It just re-confirms what I read now 25 (?) years ago.
The eponymous poem, New Hampshire, is a slog but I read it all the same and all the way through. For me it is so specifically regional and refers to people and subjects that I simply don't get. At the time for someone in New England, it might have been more relevant but to me it was the most uninteresting poem in a book that contained a number of very good poems.
All in all, it was good to finally and truly read Robert Frost. I understand now....he is one of the best, if not the best American poet of his time and reading a book of his poetry you start to see the common themes and vocabulary he uses from poem to poem. My main diet of poetry these days is by modern authors but I would also suggest it is good to go back and read the classics.
The poem spoke to me....I was a kid who liked to wander into any nearby forest for lengths of time and most of the time alone. It was the nature thing but it was also just liking to be alone in the woods in the deep quiet, lost in my thoughts. For some reason, I also wrapped this poem up in my head with The Waltons. Do you remember that first movie that the Waltons tv show spun off from? It was called The Homecoming: A Christmas Story and I remember Olivia Walton (played by Patricia Neal in the movie) looking out of the house at the snowstorm, worrying about John Walton making it home for Christmas from another part of the state. So...snow, deep quiet forest walks, anxiety about the future...you can see how it all comes together in my middle school mind...right?
Fast forward about 15 years and this poem remained my favorite poem despite having read very little poetry by Robert Frost other than this and The Road Not Taken. In fact, I read very little poetry, period. One day, while sitting in the undergraduate library at UofM, doing anything but what I really needed to do, which was write a paper, I decided to look for a book of Robert Frost's poetry. In the course of looking for one of his books I found a review/reading of the poem, Stopping by Woods, and found out the poem was really about death. That was pretty eye opening to me because I always took the poem so literally but after reading the review and re-reading the poem, I could see how a close reading of the poem could be interpreted this way.
This year, New Hampshire, the book of poems by Frost that Stopping by Woods originally appeared in came into the public domain. When I read this, I knew I would want to find a copy of it and read it...not just that poem but the whole book. Finally, now that I am reading poetry on a regular basis I should at least read a complete book of poems by Frost instead of only the two which seem to be on every middle school kid's syllabus.
I am glad I did but also, the high esteem which I had held for Robert Frost for so long has been lessened a bit...I can't say that he is my favorite poet any longer, nor can I say that Stopping by Woods is my favorite poem, but it is still up there. What I did find, however, is that there are several other poems in New Hampshire that I really liked. The fore section of the book consists mainly of longer poems including, Maple and Paul's Wife, both of which, were very good but too long to quote here. There were also a number of shorter poems that, along with Stopping by Woods, comprised the latter half of the book. Here is one that I liked...Frost uses depictions of snow in many of his poems...
Dust of Snow
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
In a Disused Graveyard is also very good as is The Onset, a looming and vivid description of a winter storm and how it burys the forest, people working outside and the village...
The Onset
Always the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend....
I think you get the picture, snow, death, dark woods, "gives up his errand, and lets death descend"...pretty common themes in Frost's poetry. Not that I don't like it, I do. It just re-confirms what I read now 25 (?) years ago.
The eponymous poem, New Hampshire, is a slog but I read it all the same and all the way through. For me it is so specifically regional and refers to people and subjects that I simply don't get. At the time for someone in New England, it might have been more relevant but to me it was the most uninteresting poem in a book that contained a number of very good poems.
All in all, it was good to finally and truly read Robert Frost. I understand now....he is one of the best, if not the best American poet of his time and reading a book of his poetry you start to see the common themes and vocabulary he uses from poem to poem. My main diet of poetry these days is by modern authors but I would also suggest it is good to go back and read the classics.
December 20, 2021
What can one say about Robert Frost that hasn't already been said? Not much. I am not sure how many poetry analyses I read as I studied (not just read) each of the poems in Robert Frost's New Hampshire, the volume that gave him his first Pulitzer Prize for poetry. This volume has one of his most popular poems entitled Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening. I had heard many a time, that this poem has the ambience of death, and I can't disagree with that interpretation considering that we all have "miles to go before I(we) sleep." And I guess, it is what we do on the journey that makes a difference, but, then again, there are times when it is just nice to "stop" and "watch." Particularly in today's world when everything is so frenetic.
This is a volume with many different types of poems, but, to me, there is an overlying theme in most of them that embraces humankind's relationship with nature, which is tenuous at best. And, interestingly enough, when something does happen to man (or woman), nature simply doesn't care, but continues on as the poet states in the last verse of the volume regarding the fiery destruction of a house and the birds that proceeded to reside in the vacated barn:
For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept.
I learned some things in reading this book that I didn't know being raised in the west, such as the definition of a "stone boat" (see "The Star in the Stone-Boat"). I also learned some things about the author that I didn't know. He was so afraid of the dark that he slept in a bed in his mother's room until he was through high school (See "The Lockless Door"). But most of all, I learned a little bit more about myself, as I read his poetry, such as how I felt about housing projects that seem to be surrounding my community ("A Brook in the City"), or how deceptive reality is, and how hard it is to find truth ("For Once, Then, Something"). Whatever it is, each of the poems provides moments of evaluation and reflection, which we don't get a lot of these days. I suppose that's why poetry is so important to read. They make us better than we are, because they force us to "stop" and "watch."
This is a volume with many different types of poems, but, to me, there is an overlying theme in most of them that embraces humankind's relationship with nature, which is tenuous at best. And, interestingly enough, when something does happen to man (or woman), nature simply doesn't care, but continues on as the poet states in the last verse of the volume regarding the fiery destruction of a house and the birds that proceeded to reside in the vacated barn:
For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept.
I learned some things in reading this book that I didn't know being raised in the west, such as the definition of a "stone boat" (see "The Star in the Stone-Boat"). I also learned some things about the author that I didn't know. He was so afraid of the dark that he slept in a bed in his mother's room until he was through high school (See "The Lockless Door"). But most of all, I learned a little bit more about myself, as I read his poetry, such as how I felt about housing projects that seem to be surrounding my community ("A Brook in the City"), or how deceptive reality is, and how hard it is to find truth ("For Once, Then, Something"). Whatever it is, each of the poems provides moments of evaluation and reflection, which we don't get a lot of these days. I suppose that's why poetry is so important to read. They make us better than we are, because they force us to "stop" and "watch."
January 8, 2023
The last sentence of the eponymous poem - aaaaahhh!
November 29, 2019
The best of the best, especially if you live or love NH. I think capturing the character of this state, both land and people, is complicated but not for Robert Frost. Also reminded how much Fire and Ice makes me feel.
June 22, 2019
Most of these were unfamiliar and I didn't much care for the titled poem. Among some of my favorites however were: "A Star in a Stone-Boat", "Maple", "In a Disused Graveyard", and "The Aim Was Song".
February 10, 2021
Who gave Frost permission!!? Seriously, who did!!
If all you know of Frost is “the woods are lovely dark and deep and I’ve miles to go before I etc etc” or “Nothing Gold can stay” I urge you to run not walk to your nearest poetry purveyor and purchase this set. I was constantly delighted and shocked by his carnality, his sensuality, the deep currents of melancholy that undulated through each poem. He captures the fey witchery of New England forests. Like Grimm, he captures folk tales from the fringes of where civilization and magic meet, and he finishes each with a sublime flourish of moralizing, rendering these quirky folk tales incisive introspections on love and loss. These poems are thrilling and heartbreaking.
This is not your middle school poetry curriculum Frost.
If all you know of Frost is “the woods are lovely dark and deep and I’ve miles to go before I etc etc” or “Nothing Gold can stay” I urge you to run not walk to your nearest poetry purveyor and purchase this set. I was constantly delighted and shocked by his carnality, his sensuality, the deep currents of melancholy that undulated through each poem. He captures the fey witchery of New England forests. Like Grimm, he captures folk tales from the fringes of where civilization and magic meet, and he finishes each with a sublime flourish of moralizing, rendering these quirky folk tales incisive introspections on love and loss. These poems are thrilling and heartbreaking.
This is not your middle school poetry curriculum Frost.
April 29, 2022
This is the volume that won Frost his first Pulitzer Prize. I know so many of his poems by heart; not that I tried to memorize them. It happened because of his vivid imagery. When our youngest daughter brought the classroom's 2 hermit crabs home from her Boston 4th grade for the Thanksgiving break, she inadvertently left their terrarium out in the car. One froze to death overnight. The next day the light for the terrarium slid closer to the little nest for the crabs, and we found the second crab on the lightbulb like overcooked bacon. Our 6 kids sat at the breakfast table with shocked looks. Time then to say,
"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."
Such is the power of Frost's work. You can call up a poem at an ordinary but vivid experience. Walking to school as a bird lands on a branch, releasing a wisp of snow, and inside your head you immediately hear
"The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I'd rued."
I have met Robert Frost twice, while at Tufts University. I was taking a course on American poetry with professor/poet John Holmes. Frost was a spritely cheerful curmudgeonly 85 yr old then, with no sign of the many losses and personal pain he had experienced throughout his life. Poetry probably saved him from deep depression and the mental and physical illness of so many in his family. Re-reading this book reminded me of my response to my student's asking "Why do we have to read this book? "You are coating your minds with gold", I'd reply.
"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."
Such is the power of Frost's work. You can call up a poem at an ordinary but vivid experience. Walking to school as a bird lands on a branch, releasing a wisp of snow, and inside your head you immediately hear
"The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I'd rued."
I have met Robert Frost twice, while at Tufts University. I was taking a course on American poetry with professor/poet John Holmes. Frost was a spritely cheerful curmudgeonly 85 yr old then, with no sign of the many losses and personal pain he had experienced throughout his life. Poetry probably saved him from deep depression and the mental and physical illness of so many in his family. Re-reading this book reminded me of my response to my student's asking "Why do we have to read this book? "You are coating your minds with gold", I'd reply.
March 12, 2020
The first half of this thing had me rethinking everything I'd ever though about Frost. Shit slapped. Wasn't dripping in sentiment and unrepentant pastoral boners or anything.
Murderous witches with a reanimated skeleton problem, ubermensch lumberjacks marrying bizarre water nymphs, and all manner of weird people and spooky happenings made this a goddamn bop.
Second half was more what I'd come to expect, which I'm still all-the-way here for, but certainly doesn't bear repeating anymore than it has these last 100 years.
Shouts out to the public domain for getting me through a real slow day in the office.
Murderous witches with a reanimated skeleton problem, ubermensch lumberjacks marrying bizarre water nymphs, and all manner of weird people and spooky happenings made this a goddamn bop.
Second half was more what I'd come to expect, which I'm still all-the-way here for, but certainly doesn't bear repeating anymore than it has these last 100 years.
Shouts out to the public domain for getting me through a real slow day in the office.
August 3, 2022
A true gem. Yes, some of the poems in this collection seem a little bit awkward (by our standards, but are they really?), but even those share some bit of wisdom that’s worth taking away. Many of the poems are stunningly beautiful, making you sense every word. I love the wider themes of 1.) nature’s relationship with humanity and vice-versa, 2.) the struggle between snow and spring as a metaphor of good vs. evil or life vs. death, and 3.) the magic of everyday moments. There are life lessons in here that I know I’ll be taking with me and pondering for a very long time. I’m glad I spent time with this collection. I feel like a better person because of it and maybe you will too.
April 2, 2021
New Hampshire is the 1924 Pulitzer Prize winning volume of poetry by Robert Frost. It includes the well-known poems “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “nothing Gold Can Stay”, and “Fire and Ice” and many more.
These poems are poems that I have rad many times before. This book brought them all back for rediscovery. It was nice to reread them in this new reprint of this well- deserved Pulitzer winning work and one of the greatest poets ever.
These poems are poems that I have rad many times before. This book brought them all back for rediscovery. It was nice to reread them in this new reprint of this well- deserved Pulitzer winning work and one of the greatest poets ever.
February 13, 2022
Okay I know I said Robert Frost is the only poet so far who made me enjoy free verse poetry but Ill admit even some of his longer free verse pieces were a bit draggy and unfulfilling for my taste but with that being said that was only the first half of the collection but the other half with his more structured and rhyme based poem just blew me away!!! this man is a literary genius and I'll always wish if only I can reach just half of what he was when it comes to the utmost well crafted prose and poetry pieces
March 1, 2022
4.5
So many great poems in this collection. I find with Frost that sometimes the poems that include his very specific location reference points are hardest to see into, and are least enjoyable.
Particular favourites:
•The Star Splitter
•Maple
•The Axe-helve
•Paul’s Wife
•Wild Grapes
•I Will Sing You One-O
•The Aim Was Song
•Not To Keep
•Misgiving
•On a Tree Fallen Across the Road
•The Lockless Door
So many great poems in this collection. I find with Frost that sometimes the poems that include his very specific location reference points are hardest to see into, and are least enjoyable.
Particular favourites:
•The Star Splitter
•Maple
•The Axe-helve
•Paul’s Wife
•Wild Grapes
•I Will Sing You One-O
•The Aim Was Song
•Not To Keep
•Misgiving
•On a Tree Fallen Across the Road
•The Lockless Door
October 6, 2022
In my quest to appreciate poetry, I seem to have found my home right where I thought I would — Robert Frost. Eloquently simple yet profound. Also, reading this in fall just adds a little extra flair that I LOVE.
“The more the sensibilitist I am
The more I seen to want my mountains wild;”
“Baptiste knew how to make a short job long
For love if it, and yet not waste time either.”
And of course, Nothing Gold Can Stay is perfect for this time of year.
“The more the sensibilitist I am
The more I seen to want my mountains wild;”
“Baptiste knew how to make a short job long
For love if it, and yet not waste time either.”
And of course, Nothing Gold Can Stay is perfect for this time of year.
February 29, 2020
A magnificent collection. A few common themes made an impression on me.
1) Frost's wry wink-and-a-nod sense of humor is so warm and playful. And it's shared even before the poetry begins! How delightful that a publication entitled "New Hampshire" would be dedicated to Vermont and Michigan, a gentle way of saying to these lesser states, "Nice effort, boys."
2) A masterful way of bringing lifeless things to life--dead trees, fallen leaves, wind, the trickle of a spring thaw. Frost weaves as much personality into these inanimate objects as any of the characters depicted.
3) The subtle longings and dreams that we never quite reach. The almost-weres. The not-quites. The if-onlys. Frost highlights the little losses in life, but always with great appreciation for life's gifts. As though he were recognizing that joy cannot be joy without a little garnish of pain.
There are a few entries that everyone will know, but these are my newly found favorites:
New Hampshire
The Census-Taker
In a Disused Graveyard
To Earthward
Misgiving
On a Tree Fallen Across the Road
1) Frost's wry wink-and-a-nod sense of humor is so warm and playful. And it's shared even before the poetry begins! How delightful that a publication entitled "New Hampshire" would be dedicated to Vermont and Michigan, a gentle way of saying to these lesser states, "Nice effort, boys."
2) A masterful way of bringing lifeless things to life--dead trees, fallen leaves, wind, the trickle of a spring thaw. Frost weaves as much personality into these inanimate objects as any of the characters depicted.
3) The subtle longings and dreams that we never quite reach. The almost-weres. The not-quites. The if-onlys. Frost highlights the little losses in life, but always with great appreciation for life's gifts. As though he were recognizing that joy cannot be joy without a little garnish of pain.
There are a few entries that everyone will know, but these are my newly found favorites:
New Hampshire
The Census-Taker
In a Disused Graveyard
To Earthward
Misgiving
On a Tree Fallen Across the Road
November 27, 2021
Early Bird Book Deal | Includes my favourite of his.
July 24, 2024
to earthward
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