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As my previous review was my very first of a collection of short stories, this particular review will mark my first of a collection of poetry. In the Spring of 2015, which was my final semester at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, I enrolled in a poetry course with the aspiration of becoming more receptive and appreciative of this literary form. I have always been more inclined towards prose, as all of my own literary ambitions are centered around that format. However, by the end of the course, I was truly glad that I had taken it. I learned the art of carefully reading poetry and identifying the elements that require our attention. Additionally, I discovered something that I'm certain most beginners in poetry come to realize: Robert Frost is an author worth reading. I ended up writing two papers on his works, one focusing on 'Birches' and the other on 'Home Burial'. Although I have a penchant for reading novels by my favorite authors, I have no intention of completely neglecting poetry. This form of literature forces us to be thoughtful, encourages us to pay closer attention to words, their meanings, and how they interact with the surrounding words. It is a much more deliberate art, and this is most evident in Frost's works. Therefore, when I visited Barnes & Noble in search of a book of poetry, I didn't hesitate to pick up this edition of collected Robert Frost poems from the shelf. One of the most striking aspects of Frost's poetry is his ability to confront you with a profound metaphysical question just as you are engrossed in reading about something as ordinary as a tree or the fruit it bears. For instance, in 'West-running Brook', the love of a young married couple extends to the brook they are admiring. At his love's prompting, the man embarks on a monologue about metaphysics, comparing our existence - the world and the vast universe surrounding us - to the flowing waters. I believe Frost intended for the young woman to inspire us to embark on the same path of thought, defying the flow of time. While many may consider Frost to be a nature poet, given his popularity for poems such as 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' or 'The Road Not Taken', his talents and expertise extend far beyond a mere familiarity with rural life. Frost's understanding of human nature seems to be boundless. He has the remarkable ability to identify specific and enduring emotions, and to account for unconscious human motives, whether they are good or bad. One of my favorite discoveries in this collection came shortly after I finished reading a little-known book called Empty Hands, Open Arms, which is an account of one writer's experience traveling with the Bonobo Conservation Initiative in the Congo. Bonobos are the species of great ape that are genetically closest to humans. From reading this book, I learned a great deal of fascinating information about great apes. Studying the lives and habits of great apes has the unintended consequence of making us reflect on ourselves. For all of our innovation and intelligence, it sometimes seems as though we have been corrupted or perhaps hindered by our own evolution. Frost describes this with great wit and irony in 'At Woodward's Gardens' through the actions of a little boy who takes pleasure in burning two caged monkeys by magnifying the sun onto their faces. The true lesson lies in how the animals - who are not so different from us - react, snatching away the weapon they don't understand and burying it at the back of their cage. Despite his mastery of lyric and traditional forms, in my opinion, Frost's use of dialogue and colloquial language is what gives birth to his best poems. 'Home Burial', 'West-running Brook', 'The Fear', and perhaps most exquisitely, 'The Death of the Hired Man', all serve as perfect examples of Frost's seamless integration of ordinary conversation and flowing verse. It is in these poems that human emotion is most fully realized, not through the poet's narration, but through the words and actions of the characters he presents to us. The realization of emotion occurs naturally on the part of the reader, as if overhearing the poem from a hidden vantage point. I believe that these are the poems that I will return to when I next pick up this collection to rediscover the wonder of Frost's work, for they serve as the greatest reminders that the extravagance of life is always hidden within the ordinary and the everyday. Louis Untermeyer, who collected and commented on the poems throughout the collection, does an excellent job of preparing readers for the tone of each poem and providing them with some details about the poetry that society may have forgotten over time. He reminds us that the two opposing aspects of Frost - the optimist who is both a lover and a worker, as well as the brooding poet who is 'Acquainted with the Night' - should be considered together, as they represent the light and dark within all of us. His final note at the end of the collection informs readers of the epitaph that Frost wrote for his own gravestone: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world." Although he acknowledges his own turmoil in life, for surely the poet's life was filled with both known and unknown tragedies, reading his poetry fills me with a sense of certainty that I have not found elsewhere in literature. With Frost in mind - remembering that greatness lies within the man and not the path he chooses to take - I can approach life with greater confidence. The value of literature is a subtle yet beautiful thing, and I believe that anyone can discover it while reading Robert Frost.
