THE LETTERS OF ROBERT FROST TO LOUIS UNTERMEYER

Frost's letters to Untermeyer extend from 1915 to the '60's; they began after Untermeyer sent Frost a fan letter about North from Boston. The friendship as such will hardly unseat Damon and Pythias, but it occasions Frost' crotchety obiter dicta on many matters, chiefly cultural, from the merits of Lindsay, Mencken, Masters or Pound, whom he called ""the Great Garbler"", or Freud, who was ""the bunk"", to pot-shot Pedagogy at Harvard and Dartmouth and on-and-off-the-scene observances of little magazines like Masses- and Poetry. However, Frost was not the All-American poet of Horatian Serenity the Luce publications have drummed up; beneath the Yankee patter a persecution mania more than playfully manifests itself; he also knew tragedy: the death of his wife and daughter and a son who committed suicide (""I took the wrong way with him, I tried many ways and every single one of them was wrong. Something in me is still asking for the chance to try once more""). Untermeyer's ""prefaces"" are plentiful and to the point. A cozy commemoration.