Mending Wall

In English classes and literary anthologies, Frost and New England are often inextricably linked, but his image as a farmer poet whose identity was galvanized by his relationship with the rugged natural landscape of this particular region of America warrants a closer look. Like many of the poems for which Frost is famous, “Mending Wall” examines humans in relation to nature, and the detailed nature imagery in the poem implies that both speaker and poet enjoy a special intimacy with place and a poignant appreciation of the notion of nature as home. In reality, however, Frost the man was not as rooted to the earth as his poems may have one believe.

Though Frost’s collection North of Boston contains many poems like “Mending Wall” that concern New England farming life, the themes of Frost’s own life are ironically in opposition to the steady reliability that characterizes the themes of the collection. By the time he published his first collection of poems at the age of 39, Frost had already lived a complicated life as a sometimes farmer and sometimes teacher. For various parts of his life Frost lived in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. Further afield, he also had two residences in England, one in Key West, Florida and one in Ann Arbor, Michigan.