Robert Lee Frost is the full name of Robert Frost. He was born in San Francisco after his parents had recently moved from Pennsylvania. Shortly after, at the age of 11, his father died resulting in his mother as well as his sister Jeanie moving back to the east. Back in the east, they lived in Massachusetts.

High school was the time in which Frost first developed a real desire for poetry. Here he began to write as well as read poetry more often. After his high school education Robert Frost moved onto Dartmouth College, followed by schooling at Harvard University. Although he did not receive any official degree from these colleges, he still became an effective writer.

Frost would move on to marry his wife, Elinor Miriam, who was the valedictorian at Frost's high school. She would later move on to live on a farm with him. After his poetry career did not work out the way he had expected, he moved to England for a better opportunity. In England, his career began as he received recognition which he could not have imagined back in America. Following the fame he had gained from his time in Europe, World War I had begun. As a result he was sent back to America where he was already a sensation. Frost who had previously been irrelevant in the states, had his name reshaped after a time in Britain. Even some of the publishers who had denied Frost prior to his move accepted his work. In some cases, he returned the works that were denied the first time, but were accepted the second as now, he became a relevant figure within the American society. His use of rhyming in poetry along with his psychological themes helped him gain his popularity through the America.

"The Road Not Taken" is one of Frost's greatest works. The poem is a reference to him and his friend Edward Thomas as they would take walks together. Thomas too was a poet, which made the two good friends. As a joke, Frost created this work for his friend and himself because they would take one path and joke about how they should have taken the other. By chance, he shared this poem with a group of college students who thought the work was astonishing and took it very seriously rather than as a joke. It has become a great symbol as it discusses the different roads in life we may take which may be wrong sometimes and right in others.

Frost's psychological interpretation of life has created a strong impact on poetry as we know it. He also used rhymes rather than the traditional forms of poetry most others would have known from that time. The poems which he had written usually portrayed a sense of darkness but also a sense of thought which forced the reader to think. His impact on the states prior to even being a writer based there, shows his worth. To have the courage to move to a different country only to have a shot at a career required great courage and assurance of his work. His gamble payed off as it lead him to be one of the most influential poets of America.

My initial reaction to his works is disapproval as poems are not necessarily my favorite type of writing. After reading the works of Frost, I felt a change in my opinion. His work is not just about rhymes and patterns, rather it focuses on abstract ideas as well as different views of life from Frost himself. A common theme of his poems which seems evident to me is something missing in his life. Through his poems such as "The Road Not Taken", "Nothing Gold Can Stay" along with others, Frost seems to deliver a message talking about parts of life he missed out on. Frost all wrote poems about love, mainly influenced by his wife Elinor. Although it was a more joyous and delightful topic, his love poems still possessed a sense of sadness and emptiness.

To me the answer is that everybody wants to be included so they look to those who are "on top" of society. This matter of wether a person is worth anything or not makes people feel as if they need to be a part of something. Thus those who seem to have more power determine the way of life for those beneath them. People may be easily swayed by the popular opinion and convinced that they can attain a fame of their own. A specific example from the life of Robert Frost is how some publishers ignored his works until fame was brought upon it. They may have been using the name of Frost as a way to promote themselves for their own personal gain.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
And Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down today
Nothing gold can stay.

This is one of Frost's shorter poems people may recognize, where Frost is basically saying how in the end of the day there is no need to dwell on the past as he looks towards a brighter tomorrow.