YourEnglishClassDotCom

My Robert Frost Book is #1 Bestseller in the US

My Robert Frost book just hit #1 on Amazon’s list of bestsellers in the United States. Not too bad for a high school English teacher.

Poetry Bestsellers in the United States - this particular edition is in Kindle format.

Robert Frost Resources

The Robert Frost Farm in Derry, New Hampshire

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. A popular and often-quoted poet, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.

Encyclopædia Britannica article on Robert Frost
“American poet who was much admired for his depictions of the rural life of New England, his command of American colloquial speech, and his realistic verse portraying ordinary people in everyday situations.”

Robert Frost
Poems and Biography by AmericanPoems.com

Yale College Lecture on Robert Frost
Audio, video and full transcripts from Open Yale Courses

A Boy’s Will
Frost’s first book of poems at Bartleby.com

Poems by Robert Frost
An extensive collection of Frost’s poetry

Poems by Robert Frost
At PoetryFoundation.org

Robert Frost
At Modern American Poetry

North of Boston and A Boy’s Will
From American Studies at the University of Virginia.

Robert Frost’s interview
In The Paris Review

Robert Frost Collection
In Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst, MA

Robert Frost Collection
In Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College, Amherst, MA

Robert Frost at Bread Loaf (Middlebury College)

Robert Frost Farm in Derry, NH

Robert Frost Out Loud
Audio recordings and commentary on many Frost poems

Robert Frost page on Ketzle.com
Poems, links

The Frost Place
A museum and poetry conference center in Franconia, N.H.

After Apple-Picking

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

I agree very much with Seamus Heaney’s assessment that this poem is not about death, that to characterize it as such would be to rob it of its life. It is indeed Frost’s ode to autumn. In another vein, Frost’s “After Apple-Picking” could have been subtitled “The Fall.” A consequence of the Fall is that humans labor. Even the most commonplace human endeavor is steeped in larger significance, which is easy to see in this poem. But we cannot say if the lines following the reference to “dreaming” in line 17 refer to the day’s labor or a memory of it because of the subtle blending of memory and sensation as well as concept and precept.

AFTER APPLE-PICKING
by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.