Where does Robert Frost rank among ranking american poets?
As a person with a Ph.D. in literature, I believe that the best poet is one whose characteristics are what you enjoy in poetry. For example, what is nice about Robert Frost is his use of rhyme and traditional poetic forms, along with the accessibility of his poems. You don’t have to play a big guessing game to “get” what he says, and he says it beautifully. Other people might like one of the modernist American poets such as Ezra Pound or H.D. and some people might even like a way-out poet like Gertrude Stein (that’s who I did my dissertation on). Some people like red wheelbarrows and are therefore fond of William Carlos Williams. I know that there is a tendency to rank everything–basketball players, Olympic swimmers, banjo players, etc., but I don’t think we can really quantify the aesthetics that make up a poem or a poet’s body of work. Frost had his good days and probably his bad ones, just like the rest of us. Would I want a world without “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…”? N
