Robert Frost’s “‘Out, Out–’” April 29, 2013: Re-reading Robert Frost's "'Out, Out—'" for the first time in a long while, I expected it to exhibit at least some kind of craft-smartness and metrical subtlety. But what an off-putting, stilted poem! The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze [...] by K. Silem Mohammad

Why I Am Not a Nature Poet April 4, 2013: [caption id="attachment_64133" align="alignright" width="500"] Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet.[/caption] A few years ago I left Brooklyn, my home for almost fifteen years, and moved to the country in upstate New York. Accustomed to a small apartment and to being pressed up against by people and buildings, I was astonished to be the sudden [...] by Camille Guthrie

Don’t Get Frosted, Wear Sunglasses… January 18, 2013: That's a nugget of advice to Richard Blanco, served up by David Ward at the Smithsonian as he meditates on the role of poetry in the presidential inauguration. Much skepticism exists about the role of poetry in such a public spectacle—can this marginal art rise to the occasion?, can the poem escape the orbit of propaganda?, can the poem [...] by Harriet Staff

A Visit to Robert Frost’s Vermont Home October 17, 2012: Andrew Burmon wrote this HuffPo piece, with photos, about a trip he took to Robert Frost's home in Vermont. He writes: Come to Vermont, Frost seems to say. We'll all do nothing together. The invitation is awfully appealing, especially in fall when the light filters through yellow leaves, turning the forest sepia. Route 7A, which [...] by Harriet Staff

Settling the Issue of Doubleness in Robert Frost June 14, 2012: New York Mag Vulture writer Kathryn Schulz reflects on The Art of Robert Frost (Yale University Press 2012), by British professor Tim Kendall ("In the annals of Frostiana [and they are vast], Kendall’s book is an unusual hybrid, part anthology, part critical study: 65 poems with two or three pages of understated, illuminating commentary [...] by Harriet Staff

Robert Frost’s “Dedication” to Kennedy, 50 years later January 21, 2011: The Boston Globe's Alan Wirzbicki has published the full text of Robert Frost's "Dedication," the poem he wrote for John F. Kennedy's 1961 inauguration. Frost never read the poem that day, instead reciting "The Gift Outright" when the combination of sun and snow proved too bright for reading the words on the page. In a ceremony today, Rep. Daniel [...] by Harriet Staff

Does poetry need its own Glee? January 13, 2011: On The Moderate Voice, Michael Silverstein proposes an unusual solution to restoring the place of poetry in civic discourse. The problem isn't with poetry itself, rather the medium for delivering it to the masses. Silverstein has had it with the Op Ed pages of newspapers which are now as overrun with "spin doctoring" and "hype" as any other [...] by Harriet Staff