“A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.”

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Meaning

This reads as a defence of poetry as something felt before it is shaped. The line points to emotion, absence, and unease as the real source of a poem, not polished thinking. It lands when someone is trying to explain why art arrives out of grief, longing, or a nagging sense that something is out of place.

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Originally said in English.

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About Robert Frost

American poet

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is known for his realistic portrayals of rural life and his mastery of American colloquial speech, especially in poems set in New England in the early 20th century. In those settings, Frost explored questions that were larger than the landscape itself, using ordinary rural scenes to look at social and philosophical concerns. His work stays closely tied to place and speech, but it often reaches beyond them to reflect on human experience.

More from Robert Frost (154 quotes) →

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Books by Robert Frost

North of Boston

2004

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Robert Frost

1973

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The Road Not Taken and Other Poems

2015

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