“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is one of those poems that sticks with you forever. Published in 1923, it’s deceptively simple. Guy stops his horse on a winter night to watch snow fall in the woods. That’s it. But something about those sixteen lines keeps people coming back, keeps them quoting those final … Read more
“Birches” is one of those Frost poems that starts simple and sneaks up on you. Published in 1916, it opens with bent birch trees and the speaker wondering what caused it. Could be ice storms, sure, but he’d rather imagine a boy swinging on them. That preference for imagination over cold reality sets up everything … Read more
“After Apple-Picking” is one of Frost’s most unsettling poems, and that unsettling quality comes from what he doesn’t say. Published in 1914, it starts straightforward enough: tired farmer finishes harvesting apples, gets drowsy, heads toward sleep. But that sleep feels wrong somehow. Too heavy, too final. By the end you’re not sure if the speaker … Read more