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Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”

Frost’s most famous poem, “The Road Not Taken,” is fundamentally a poem about the challenge of making decisions knowing that every decision narrows what we’re able to experience in life. “Stopping by Woods” is similarly about the difficulty of making choices. In this case, the speaker struggles with the temptation to stay and rest even as they feel the pull of their social obligations.

Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”

Mary Oliver belongs to the same lineage of American poets as Frost. Both used unadorned language to write of the beauty and tranquility of the natural world. Yet the apparent simplicity of their work belies deeper concerns with the profound challenges of being human. For these reasons, it would prove generative to read their poetry together.

James Joyce, Dubliners

The snow-swept landscape at the center of Frost’s poem has a symbolic resonance that puts it in conversation with the final lines of Joyce’s great book of short stories. Dubliners ends with a story called “The Dead,” which famously concludes with an image of snow falling that Joyce uses to similarly symbolic effect. In both works, snow is a profound equalizer.

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