Adam Plunkett’s Love and Need offers something of a recuperation of Robert Frost by reminding us that the poet's fierceness is also a source of the considerable power of his work.

And I think that there was a lot of sadness in Frost. And I think this poem is suffused with a certain amount of ruefulness, a certain amount of regret and a mixing of nostalgia with regret.

Plunkett, whose book offers close readings of the poems as well as the life, quite likes “My Butterfly.” For him, it “reads like a spell that conjures the experience of grace.” Frost ...

A critic wrestles with Robert Frost’s life and verse© Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Farrar, Straus & Giroux Adam Plunkett, author of “Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost’s Poetry.”© Berit ...

Sometimes seen as the stuff of commencement addresses, his poems are hard to pin down—just like the man behind them.

And I think that there was a lot of sadness in Frost. And I think this poem is suffused with a certain amount of ruefulness, a certain amount of regret and a mixing of nostalgia with regret.

Sometimes things live up to their name. Take Robert Frost. The four-time-Pulitzer-winning poet is known for his wintry poem "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening." (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING ...

I would really miss it. LIMBONG: Is there anything new you've learned about Frost from this poem, or do you have any other questions that now arise because of it? PARINI: I think I didn't realize ...