A birthday party was given for Robert Frost when he turned eighty five years old. His publishers, Henry Holt and Company hosted a party on March 26, 1959. The guest speaker at the event was the essayist Louis Trilling. During the speech Trilling referred to Frost as “a terrifying poet.” This comment caused a controversy. In the April issue of The New York Times Book Review the columnist J. Donald Adams criticized Tilling for using that description of Robert Frost. Several people had their angry letters published.
Does Trilling make a good point that Frost’s poems are terrifying? The poems will be ...