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Oh man, I really want to say them's fighting words (haaaate Kinkade, do love Frost) but I fear my poetry background is inadequate to defend Robert. Curse my lacking education! At the very least, Frost is a good entry point to richer, darker poetry (though I'd argue he has work that is plenty rich and dark) unlike Kinkade which just leads to more Kinkade and me making the jerk-off motion while rolling my eyes to the side.

Margaret wrote: "Oh man, I really want to say them's fighting words (haaaate Kinkade, do love Frost) but I fear my poetry background is inadequate to defend Robert. Curse my lacking education! At the very least, Fr..."

Haha, yea I meant it to be more inflammatory than I actually feel, but it was fun to type. It's an ongoing joke with a friend at work really. Frost is pretty rad, I mean he is definitely many peoples first introduction to poetry and I have no complaints against him. I like that you point out the darkness though, which is usually not talked about. Kinkade though, yea, screw that guy and all those paint-by-numbers of his I made a fool of myself attempting as a kid ha. Mostly the comparison is for the idyllic pastoral imagery, and that while I appreciate Frost and admit to his genius, it never really did much for me.

Inflammatory and fun to type makes for good goodreads times. :-) Just to add on to the darkness in his poems, I think it's well known that his longer poems tend towards dark (Death of the Hired Man, Home Burial) but my favorites of his are actually short and dark (though maybe not at first glance?). I like "Devotion" and "Neither Out Far Nor In Deep" for short, dark Frost. Both are also supposedly about the sea and I love that he finds a dark side to the repetition of the waves rather than comfort. As you say, though, he's not for everyone. Thanks for getting me thinking about him tonight!

Margaret wrote: "Inflammatory and fun to type makes for good goodreads times. :-) Just to add on to the darkness in his poems, I think it's well known that his longer poems tend towards dark (Death of the Hired Man..."

I need to reread those now! Which is the joy in goodreads as it sends you back to books to think more critically. I like your point about the waves too. Which reminds me of Lorca, read any of him? He has a lot of really great poems about the sea (and many more about all aspects of life) that have this really intimate darkness about them. Any other poets you like? I feel compelled to plug Charles Simic here since I am at this very moment holding his new collection in my lap. He has this way of exposing the cruelty and beauty of life all within a single poem, or even a single line.

I'll check out Simic, thanks! I have read Lorca and really enjoy him, but I don't remember his poems about the sea, I'll have to look for those. I tend to read poetry autobiographically, which is to say I read poets who are gay and/or queer and lived in NYC as I am/do both of these things. So I've read who you would expect: Hart Crane, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Frank O'Hara, James Merrill, etc. If you're looking for cruelty and beauty, I might recommend Stephen Crane, though he may be more suitable to the tragically young, as I was when I read him in high school (in a book with some great, bleak illustrations). Stanley Kunitz may be better for grown folk. I now tend to lighter (in the spiritual sense, I guess? or religious, though I'm not either myself, but that just makes it more challenging to read) work in poetry, and like Czesław Miłosz and Galway Kinnell and W.S. Merwin and of course Emily Dickinson.

Hey, all great choices! Milosz was my 'first favorite' poet, I used to keep a volume of his in my backpack in college at all times just to show it to people and be like 'read this! it's amazing!' ha.