Robert Frost (1874-1963) was born in San Francisco, California, and is most identified with rural New England. His debut A Boy's Will (David Nutt, 1913) and North of Boston (David Nutt, 1914) were first published in England. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times, for New Hampshire (1924), Collected Poems (1931), A Further Range (1937), and A Witness Tree (1943). He recited The Gift Outright at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. He wrote in traditional forms and blank verse.
Who was your "gateway poet," the poet whose first book or poem made you want to write?
Shel Silverstein was my early elementary school gateway drug that soon led to the first grown-up poet that I ever loved: Robert Frost. In fourth grade, my teacher Mrs. Holland, assigned us to memorize a poem from a selection. The longest poem in the bunch was "The Road Not Taken," which none of the other kids picked. I picked it, at first just in the attempt to impress my teacher. In the end, I also found a new world, and started writing poems that year too.