Our jumping off point for our study into Robert Frost is an article by Jessica Laser for The Paris Review provocatively titled, “Is Robert Frost Even a Good Poet?”. In this article she interviews journalist and Frost biographer Adam Plunkett.
In the interview with Laser, Plunkett says:
Frost’s mind really did work by trying to strip ordinary problems down to the deepest tensions underlying them. That doesn’t mean that he was always wise … he could be extremely stubborn and crass and prejudiced, especially in his old age. That people tend to rest in easy interpretations of his poems comes in part from the idea that the man who was writing the poetry was in some way simple … I’d add that, as I see the arc of Frost’s career, the more he’s institutionalized, the worse his writing gets. The more access he has to a privileged, cosmopolitan, educated world, the more that world starts to crowd out his other exposures, and there’s a loss there (Laser, 2025).
Knowing next to nothing about Frost, I like that one of his many biographers points out a very human trait about Frost which in his view impacted his work. Frost seemed to be influenced by those around him. His work was affected by the institutionalisation that he himself was so critical of (Laser, 2025). I think as we move into more elite or rarified circumstances, it would be very hard for it to not affect your values and world views and it’s nice to know Frost was not immune to that. It makes him more reachable. It humanises him to me.
In regards to reading Robert Frost, Plunkett has this to say:
Reading Frost requires a kind of modesty and curiosity. Coming to this modesty has been a big part of my own experience with him. At first, I was reading a lot of the poems and thinking, This is dumb. What a dumb way of looking at the world. Then I would think more, and read them again, and the twentieth time, I would realize I had been holding on to a false sense of certainty. Frost called poetry “guessing at myself.” If you have a picture of yourself or of the other or of the world that’s entirely certain, then you can’t really guess at it (Laser, 2025).
I do appreciate the idea that the world and the things in and of this world should remain somewhat unknowable. To think you have complete knowledge in any field is a form of spiritual and intellectual death because it quells the curiosity in us, the desire to know and in order to have this desire to know, you need uncertainty. You do in fact need modesty. I’m glad I didn’t read Frost when I was at university because I was too adamant then. When you are young you are insecure and in your insecurity, you seek to leave an impact or a mark by embracing strident and formed opinions. But honestly I would argue that education works best in conjunction with humility. I believe if you approach a subject matter with humility the depth and breadth of that subject matter is open to you.
Finally, Plunkett concludes by saying:
I’d say that, for me, the biggest gift of the art is his ability to see potentially transcendent beauty and a sense of meaning in things that you’d otherwise think of as too obvious to really regard. It’s a kind of grace of attention. (Laser, 2025).
I really like Plunkett’s observation about Frost seeing transcendent meaning in the obvious because I feel the same way about Frost’s poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”. It’s in part about dawn and what isn’t beautiful or transcendent about dawn? It’s a bit bloody obvious but Frost didn’t shy away from lingering on it and observing it in such a profound way.
These are the first thoughts about Frost. I hope to borrow and read a biography about Frost from the library soon. If I can find it in the library, I will be reading Robert Frost: A Life (1999) by Jay Parini which has been recommended as being a balanced biography of the American poet.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully I will have something more to write about Robert Frost soon as we continue our journey and our series.
References:
Laser, J. (2025, March 17). Is Robert Frost Even a Good Poet? The Paris Review. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/03/17/is-robert-frost-even-a-good-poet/
