By: Haley Neeley

ROBERT FROST

WHO IS ROBERT FROST?• Four-time Pulitzer Prize winning American poet.

• A teacher.

• Robert grew up exposed to works by William Shakespeare and poets Robert Burns and William Wordsworth,

ROBERT FROST FINDS SUCCESS

• Robert Frost’s first break as a poet was in 1894 when the New York magazine Independent published “My Butterfly”

• Frost found success over in Europe.

He Published his first set of poems, A Boy’s Will (1913) , and North of Boston (1914) followed right behind .

After his work was printed, fellow poets Edward Thomas and Ezra Pound became friends and supporters .

WINNING WORKS.

• New Hampshire in1923 – First Pulitzer Prize

• Collected Poems in 1931

• A Further Range in 1937

• A Witness Tree in 1943

POEMS FOR THE PRESIDENT • At Inauguration of American President John F. Kennedy on 20 January 1961, Frost

recited his poem “The Gift Outright”.

• Following Frost’s death, Kennedy gave a speech at Amherst College, speaking on the importance of the Arts in America.

• President Kennedy stated ““The death of Robert Frost leaves a vacancy in the American spirit....His death impoverishes us all; but he has bequeathed his Nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding.”

• On his 88th birthday, Frost received from President Kennedy a medal voted him by Congress.

• Prior to that, President Eisenhower had named him a consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress.

THE MOTIFS IN ROBERT’S POETRY

• The changes of the seasons.

• The alternation of day and night.

FROM PAPER TO FILMROBERT FROST’S POEMS ARE STILL USED TODAY.

HIS WORKS ARE MENTIONED IN FILMS SUCH AS THE OUTSIDERS AND TWILIGHT ECLIPSE.

The character Johnny says, “Stay Gold PonyBoy” referring to Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold can Stay”

In Twilight Eclipse, the poem Fire and Ice is read, and the poem also symbolizes the two male lead characters.

WHAT INFLUENCE DID FROST BRING TO LITERATURE?

• Frost himself on the question of influence, indebtedness and the giving of the poetic gift.

• He lived a simple farm life, which influenced his writing Marion Montgomery has explained, "His attitude toward

nature is one of armed and amicable truce and mutual respect interspersed with crossings of the boundaries" between individual man and natural forces.

• His poems are filled with question that deal with everyday life.

• His poetry was at the crossroads of the 19 th century and modernism,