This collection of thoughts and ideas came from an outcry of pain and suffering. Many people are in need to be listened to and call for action. I just wanted to freestyle with writing and help those believe in themselves. The more I wrote, the larger the readership grew. I received correspondence from all over on how a certain story helped them in some way. Sometimes I was asked to write something to inspire an event that was coming up and it ended up inspiring the masses. My intention was simple just to write what I felt on certain things and remind people how important and special they are. There are many people that feel lost and need guidance and I assumed a role to simply guide those lost souls. Most people I have encountered never were lost. They were just sidetracked off their path or journey. The snowball effect happened as I wrote more and these are a collection of my most favorite stories. These aren’t mine; they belong to you, the reader. They have helped so many and I hope they help a new group of people by getting the word out. Bob Frost was created a while ago for my love of Robert Frost. I first heard “Nothing Gold Can Stay” from “The Outsiders” and fell in love with the poem. I’ve been studying his many quotes and poems, and made me look up to him as a writer, mentor and even friend. I took his name in celebration of his work and wishful thinking. I joined an anonymous website to express some personal issues in my life and quickly found others just like me. People had gotten to know me as “Bob” and I stuck with it. My real name, real life, make no difference and I preferred to remain an unknown person writing to many people about what they wanted to talk about. Some chose to write about happy things and some wanted to vent and get some answers. To me, it’s the never ending quest for wisdom and knowledge. I possess none or pretend that I do. These stories are just my opinions, not facts. I don’t have a degree in anything other than “life”. I’m a middle class male in America trying to find my own way in life, my path. I don’t boast a PhD in anything other than hard knocks. I love to write and I enjoy helping others effortlessly. If I don’t have an answer for you, I’ll find out one and help you any way I can. I’m here to live my life and walk my path. What I didn’t realize is that while I live my life I encounter others on my path. Some are looking for guidance; some are looking for a helping hand. Some people just ignore and keep on walking. I refuse to believe in that way of thinking. As much as I argue with others about what I do, I feel the personal need to listen to every voice that write or talks to me. It makes for a difficult life for me, but the rewards mean more to me than anything. You have to sacrifice so much to be happy. You have to sometimes put everything and everyone aside and believe me, I did at first. I lost a lot but later found out it was the others that lost me. It took a long, vigorous process for me to accept the fact that not everyone is going to accept me. I’ve tried my whole life to be accepted and I still feel as if I’m not totally a part of society. So I write on and hopefully help others feel comfortable and at ease. I have always been an empath and that alone is a pain that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Believe me, it’s mostly my own fault for being so naïve, but like I stated before, the rewards are limitless. So many people have thanked me and told me stories of success. The last couple of years I’ve told that I should publish my writing and try to get this message out to as many people as I can. After much thought, I decided to go for it. This book represents who and what “Bob Frost” is. I hope I don’t come off as pompous, but I finally separated myself from my alter ego. I am an individual and that’s why I have come out and did this. I don’t use politics or religion in my writing. I feel the human soul is enough of a religious and political struggle within you. I don’t use it a

A cultural “biography” of Robert Frost’s beloved poem, arguably the most popular piece of literature written by an American “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .” One hundred years after its first publication in August 1915, Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget that it is, in fact, a poem. Yet poetry it is, and Frost’s immortal lines remain unbelievably popular. And yet in spite of this devotion, almost everyone gets the poem hopelessly wrong. David Orr’s The Road Not Taken dives directly into the controversy, illuminating the poem’s enduring greatness while revealing its mystifying contradictions. Widely admired as the poetry columnist for The New York Times Book Review, Orr is the perfect guide for lay readers and experts alike. Orr offers a lively look at the poem’s cultural influence, its artistic complexity, and its historical journey from the margins of the First World War all the way to its canonical place today as a true masterpiece of American literature. “The Road Not Taken” seems straightforward: a nameless traveler is faced with a choice: two paths forward, with only one to walk. And everyone remembers the traveler taking “the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” But for a century readers and critics have fought bitterly over what the poem really says. Is it a paean to triumphant self-assertion, where an individual boldly chooses to live outside conformity? Or a biting commentary on human self-deception, where a person chooses between identical roads and yet later romanticizes the decision as life altering? What Orr artfully reveals is that the poem speaks to both of these impulses, and all the possibilities that lie between them. The poem gives us a portrait of choice without making a decision itself. And in this, “The Road Not Taken” is distinctively American, for the United States is the country of choice in all its ambiguous splendor. Published for the poem’s centennial—along with a new Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Frost’s poems, edited and introduced by Orr himself—The Road Not Taken is a treasure for all readers, a triumph of artistic exploration and cultural investigation that sings with its own unforgettably poetic voice.

The Penny Poet of Portsmouth is a memoir of the author’s friendship with Robert Dunn, a brilliant poet who spent most of his life off the grid in downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The book is as well an elegy for a time and place—the New England seaport city of the early 1990s that has been lost to development and gentrification, capturing the life Robert was able to make in a place rougher around the edges than it is today. It is a meditation on what writing asks of those who practice it and on the nature of solitude in a culture filled with noise and clutter.

In this volume, Lesley Lee Francis, granddaughter of Robert Frost, brings to life the Frost family's idyllic early years. Through their own words, we enter the daily lives of Robert, known as RF to his family and friends, his wife, Elinor, and their four children, Lesley, Carol, Irma, and Marjorie. The result is a meticulously researched and beautifully written evocation of a fleeting chapter in the life of a literary family.Taught at home by their father and mother, the Frost children received a remarkable education. Reared on poetry, nurtured on the world of the imagination, and instructed in the art of direct observation, the children produced an exceptional body of writing and artwork in the years between 1905 and 1915. Drawing upon previously unexamined journals, notebooks, letters, and the little magazine entitled The Bouquet produced by the Frost children and their friends, Francis shows how the genius of Frost was enriched by his interactions with his children. Francis depicts her grandfather as a generous, devoted, and playful man with a striking ability to communicate with his children and grandchildren. She traces the family's adventures from their farm years in New Hampshire through their nearly three years in England. This enchanting evocation of the Frost family's life together makes more poignant the unforeseen personal tragedies that would befall its members in later years.

"Excerpted from Fodor's New England"--P. [4] of cover.

Collection of plays that's great for High School Drama Clubs and class readings. Productions royalty free.

Each Vermont country store carries its own particular stock of special wares and memorable characters. From the Connecticut River to Lake Champlain, country stores and their dedicated owners offer warmth against the blizzard, advice and a friendly ear or a stern word. Neighbors meet and communities are forged beside these feed barrels and bottomless coffee urns. Author Dennis Bathory-Kitsz returns once again to the Green Mountain State with this updated and revised history and guide to its beloved country stores. When Hurricane Irene threatened many of these local institutions and communities in 2011, Vermonters came together, often at their country stores. Explore the very heart of communities big and small, where locals have been keeping their house keys behind the counter and solving the world's problems on the front stoop for more than two hundred years.

This concluding volume of the Literary Trails of North Carolina trilogy takes readers into an ancient land of pale sand, dense forests, and expansive bays, through towns older than our country and rich in cultural traditions. Here, writers reveal lives long tied to the land and regularly troubled by storms and tell tales of hardship, hard work, and freedom. Eighteen tours lead readers from Raleigh to the Dismal Swamp, the Outer Banks, and across the Sandhills as they explore the region's connections to over 250 writers of fiction, poetry, plays, and creative nonfiction. Along the way, Georgann Eubanks brings to life the state's rich literary heritage as she explores these writers' connection to place and reveals the region's vibrant local culture. Excerpts invite readers into the authors' worlds, and web links offer resources for further exploration. Featured authors include A. R. Ammons, Gerald Barrax, Charles Chesnutt, Clyde Edgerton, Philip Gerard, Kaye Gibbons, Harriet Jacobs, Jill McCorkle, Michael Parker, and Bland Simpson. Literary Trails of North Carolina is a project of the North Carolina Arts Council.

"The International Appalachian Trail runs north from Mount Katahdin seven hundred miles to the end of the Gaspé Peninsula. Inspired by Basho, Ian Marshall hiked it for six summers, probing the poetics of haiku while exploring a vast and beautiful wilderness little known in the US. Marshall is an engaging trail companion and a superb story teller, with a self deprecating wit and sharp intellect that spice up his observations and ideas. Like Basho, he finds the miraculous in the common and elevates the humble walk into a spiritual practice, sprinkling his narrative with lovely original haiku that seem to have condensed in the moment, like droplets of dew. Backpackers will appreciate his pungent descriptions of life on the trail, and ecocritics will savor his abundant insights on poetry, nature, and culture. This lively book serves up a classic blend of high adventure, literary pilgrimage, and self discovery. It tastes as tart and fresh as wild raspberries."--John Tallmadge, past-president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment and author of The Cincinnati Arch: Learning from Nature in the City

In the midst of the hurt and the mundane, the questions and the not yets, you can forget just how far you have come. This illustrated collection of poetry and essays invites you to reclaim moments of brokenness, division, and pain and re-envision them as experiences of reconciliation, unity, and hope. Popular Instagram poet and bestselling author Morgan Harper Nichols weaves together personal reflections through her signature poems, reflecting on the moments that shaped her. She invites you to: Awaken your heart and recognize how your own story has made you who you are today Enter into a deeper understanding of pressing on and pressing in, of transformation and surrender Discover meaning in the losses and embrace anticipation for the splendor ahead Become who you are in the moment you hold right now How Far You Have Come is an excellent gift for college and high school graduations, celebrations and anniversaries, life transitions, and birthdays or simply a gift for yourself. Follow Morgan on Instagram @morganharpernicols (along with her millions of followers), and look for more beautiful, thought-provoking poetry in her other collections: All Along You Were Blooming You Are Only Just Beginning