John Richetti reads selected poems of Robert Frost
Robert Frost (1874–1963) became the most widely known American poet during
his long lifetime, although the poems most familiar to the public during his
later years, especially "The Road Not Taken," presented a somewhat misleading
view of him as a benign rural sage who offered simple, folksy consolations
drawn from Nature. But in fact his poetry uses the closely-observed natural
world to evoke situations and images that explore moral and philosophical issues
with rigorous clarity. As the critic, Lionel Trilling observed Frost's poetic
universe is in fact "terrifying." His often disturbing poetic insights are
delivered in a straightforward, conversational style that uses traditional
metrical organization as well as rhyme.
Frost was born in San Francisco and worked as a New Hampshire farmer only
briefly before deciding to move to England in 1912 to pursue a career as a poet.
He published there his first book, A Boy's Will (1913)
and came to know the American expatriate poet, Ezra Pound, as well as many other
prominent writers while in England, including William Butler Yeats, who
remarked to Pound that Frost's first book "is the best poetry written in America
for a long time." Upon his return to the United States, he bought a farm in
New Hampshire. In 1917 he settled in Amherst, Massachusetts and for a number
of years taught at Amherst College, the beginning of a life-long affiliation
with the school.
All the poems in this selection are drawn from the Library of America edition
of his works, Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, &
Plays, ed. Richard Poirier and Mark Richardson.
—John Richetti
Home Recordings, August 16–17, 2021
- Provide, Provide (1:06): MP3
- My November Guest (1:03): MP3
- After Apple Picking (2:00): MP3
- Departmental (1:47): MP3
- Choose Something Like a Star (1:15): MP3
- Design (0:56): MP3
- Mowing (0:56): MP3
- A Considerable Speck (1:48): MP3
- Acquainted with the Night (0:56): MP3
- Birches (3:24): MP3
- Stopping by Woods (0:55): MP3
- The Oven Bird (0:53): MP3
- Nothing Gold Can Stay (0:23): MP3
- The Rose Family (0:24): MP3
- Putting in the Seed (0:53): MP3
- Fire and Ice (0:28): MP3
- The Road Not Taken (1:07): MP3
- The Tuft of Flowers (2:15): MP3
- Never Again Would the Birds' Song Be the Same (0:56): MP3
- Hyla Brook (0:58) MP3
- For Once Then Something (1:07): MP3
- To Earthward (1:18): MP3
- In a Disused Graveyard (0:54): MP3
- Into My Own (1:01): MP3
- Ghost House (1:46): MP3
- Hardwood Groves (0:44): MP3
- The Wood Pile (2:28): MP3
- Dust of Snow (0:20): MP3
- Spring Pools (0:54): MP3
- Once by the Pacific (0:54): MP3
- Tree at My Window (0:51): MP3
- Desert Places (1:06): MP3
- West-Running Brook (4:26): MP3
- Two Look at Two (2:43): MP3
- Two Tramps in Mud Time (3:44): MP3
- A Hillside Thaw (2:13): MP3
- Directive (3:29): MP3
- The Death of the Hired Man (9:09): MP3
- Home Burial (6:45): MP3
- The Witch of Coos (8:36): MP3
- The Subverted Flower (2:48): MP3
- The Demiurge's Laugh (1:03): MP3
- Pan with Us (1:47): MP3
© 2021 John Richetti. Recordings available for non-commercial and educational use
only. Distributed with permission of John Richetti by PennSound.
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