1. Robert Frost’s An Old Man’s Winter Night and Mending Wall Part One
The Coldest Image
Robert Frost’s
An Old Man’s Winter Night
and Mending Wall
Part One

2. To Start
Review/Apply: Why is imagery so important in poetry? Explain your ideas in terms of the impact it has on the reader.

3. Objective
Students will analyze the way the imagery of Frost’s poem An Old Man’s Winter Night and Mending Wall subtly communicates Frost’s vision of nature.

4. Robert Frost
Born 1874, Died 1963
By the nineteen-twenties, he was the most celebrated poet in America, and with each new book, his fame and honors (including four Pulitzer Prizes) increased.
Frost is most known for his poems that describe life in the countryside of New England.

5. Robert Frost
“Though his work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England, and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time, Frost is anything but a merely regional or minor poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he is a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony” (poets.org).

6. Imagery and An Old Man’s Winter Night
The first poem we will read is An Old Man’s Winter Night. As we read the poem, pay attention to the images Frost provides.

7. Imagery and An Old Man’s Winter Night
Reread the poem to yourself. Look at the images. Now draw the poem at the bottom of your copy. Take a few minutes and sketch a picture of what you see being described by Frost.

8. Imagery and An Old Man’s Winter Night
Review your drawing of the poem. What images did you include? What feelings or emotions might be expressed in your drawing: peace, quiet, or something different?
Examine the sample drawing on the projector. How does yours compare? What might account for the differences? Examine the poem for clues.

9. Wrap Up
Underline the images in the poem that Frost uses to personify nature. How would one characterize Frost’s view of nature?