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20th out of 21 books
—
6 voters
A Boy's Will & North of Boston
"A Bays Will" (1913) and "North of Boston" (1914) marked the debut of Robert Frost as a major talent. Four of his volumes won the Pulitzer Prize before his death in 1963, and his body of work has since become an integral part of the American national heritage.
Paperback, 160 pages
Published
April 10th 2001
by Signet Classics
(first published 1990)
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Incredible!
What Frost gets so well is the absurdity of a young genius confronted with the reality of life in a small town. And, learning to live with it.
What Frost gets so well is the absurdity of a young genius confronted with the reality of life in a small town. And, learning to live with it.
All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him -- at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; -- and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, fa...more
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him -- at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; -- and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, fa...more
Nothing really wild and crazy in this volume. As normally happens, the poems that one has run into before are the best ones (thus, they have been passed on). "Mending Wall" and "After Apple Picking" were the only two I knew previously, and I'm pretty sure they were the best two in there. However, there is some other neat stuff to be found: he has a lot of long, dialogue poems that tell Hemmingway-esqe stories, in addition to some exciting little love poems I didn't know were in his vein. "Asking...more
These were Robert Frost's first two books of poetry. As his first works, they seem a fitting place to begin studying Frost. Frost reminds me of William Blake, in that his poems are deceptively simple, using straight end-rhyme frequently. Again like Blake, his rhyme hides beneath it deep meaning. My favorite poem from A Boy's Will is "Stars".
The second book, North of Boston, is very different from the first. It contains narrative poems usually around three to five pages long. The most famous of t...more
The second book, North of Boston, is very different from the first. It contains narrative poems usually around three to five pages long. The most famous of t...more
The first half, "A Boy's Will," was better than the second, "North of Boston." ABW are romantic poems, about nature, love, and death, in the grand tradition of Wordsworth et al. They ostensibly follow the couse of a boy's life/coming of age.
The second half, or second book, I didn't like much. Most of the poems are hardly poems at all; they're more like short stories written with line breaks. Some of the stories/poems were interesting, some I just couldn't care about. There were a few more "poem...more
I tried really hard to like A Boy's Will/North of Boston. Robert Frost is such a celebrated poet that I almost felt that anything less than absolute adoration would be blasphemy. And he did author a few of my favorite poems, so I went into it with high expectations.
Frost truly was an amazing poet. He was a powerful poet. You read the words on the page, and suddenly you're standing in lush green fields, surrounded by flowers. And you can feel the breeze, you can smell the air, you can see the gir...more
Frost truly was an amazing poet. He was a powerful poet. You read the words on the page, and suddenly you're standing in lush green fields, surrounded by flowers. And you can feel the breeze, you can smell the air, you can see the gir...more
This was the little Dover book I bought once after selling back my textbooks and really started my love of Robert Frost. Just reread it. I really did have to slow down and get back in the groove of close reading, but I enjoyed this again. Too much wistfulness, but in a good way. A dose of contentedness with life as well, and some nice moments of love and wonder.
A charming collection of Frost's poems originally published in 1913 & 1914 respectively. A great introduction to Frost and contains some of his finest poems i.e. "Mending Wall", "After Apple-Picking", and "The Death of a Hired Man".
Two collections of poems by Robert Frost. North of Boston has a number of longer, narrative poems I really appreciate. A boy's Will is more focused on nature. Both are good but North of Boston is better.
I was surprised by the long narratives in this book - different than the little moral rhyming poems I'm used to from Frost. Some of this is downright entrancing, like 'The Death of the Hired Man'.
If you need to brush up on your iambs - then read this book. A Boy's Will is all metered for your ear's pleasure. North of Boston is all blank verse (more iambic pentameter - more or less consistently).
Aug 13, 2012
Joshua Cooney
added it
Frost defines America and what it means to be an American. So, if you are an American, or want to understand American culture, you should probably read him.
Frosts woods are the woods I grew up in. These poems explore the landscapes and idears of my people, the WASPs of New England.
I am not much of a poet nor do I know much about poetry, but I did enjoy my first skim of this. I read most of the poems 2 or more times and then marked the ones I liked so that i'd read them again. I found the economy of words to be so amazing in much of this work that as a writer, i found myself looking at the nuts and bolts as much as any duality that existed in the poem. If you like nature, you'll Love Frost. And, if you're ever at a cocktail part and can successfully quote frost, you must b...more
frost is not just a poet i like to read, but for me he is an important poet. along with wallace stevens and william carlos williams, his poetry gives me the sense that i am part of a collective that is america even if it is not actually true. and i do not mean that in a patriotic sense, but in the sense that deep down we do share sense of aesthetics through spans of generations. also i think the reason he is so popular and so widely read is because his poems are so well crafted and bear a distic...more
four stars for North of Boston - the poems in A Boy's Will suck.
Nothing beats his poetry.
Woot! Alright, Frost!
After having heard so many folks rave over Robert Frost I finally took the plunge, but found myself unmoved and wondering what could have been missed among these pages. Just goes to show, even the most renowned authors can't strike a chord with everyone.
Two of the best poems in this volume are "After Apple Picking" and "The Mended Wall." The rest of the poem's I didn't care for, but understand why Frost has become so anthologized in America.
I had fun trying to interpret some of them, but others were boring. Still the way he uses darkness is charming. Most of his poems that I like weren't in this book
no review to give as i have just started the book he is a four time Pulitzer Prize Winner so i thaught to take a gander at his work, maybe i will learn something
From Mending walls, to a Road not taken and a boys will Robert Frost layerd purpose and meaning shows poetry is still alive and breating.
Personally, I prefer "a Boy's Will" to "North of Boston," but both compliment each other in this volume.
I'm not big on American literature or poetry, particularly from this era, but these were very enjoyable.
the first half of this book is uninteresting, but the second half is clever and humorous.
great poems, but I'm not interested in reading 5 pages of New England farmer dialogue.
HOME BURIAL /// I put it on the my writings page as it won't fit here, grrr
This is some of the best poetry ive ever read...
My favorite poem is The Mending Wall.
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Flinty, 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...more
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