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Just heard this on the Writer's Almanac. Robert Frost happens to be one of my favorite poets, so thought I'd share.
~gift horse
It was on this day in 1923 that Robert Frost's poem "Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening," was published in the New Republic. He'd written the poem after staying up all night working on a different poem called "New Hampshire" (1923). He said later, "I went outdoors, got out sideways and didn't disturb anybody in the house, and about nine or ten o'clock went back in and wrote ['Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening,'] as if I'd had an hallucination." He said that the first lines of the poem, "Whose woods these are, I think I know, / his house is in the village though," contained everything he knew about how to write.
Poem: "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost, from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Henry Holt and Co.).
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Gift Horse: I'm quite ignorant about poetry, but have
enjoyed several of Frost's poems. It surprised me to learn
that he was born in California. I just took a look at his
bio, and couldn't help wondering why he chose to go to
England - what do you thing England had to offer him?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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How about culture, Bill? 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thank-you G.H. I'd never read this poem before. It's quite lovely.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Capfka: I think you needed to go to England for culture more than Frost did.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Possibly. Unlike you, I'm not old enough to have met the gent to be able to decide for myself ... 
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Pooh-Bah
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I've walked in the woods and meadows which inspired Robert Frost, and I contemplated the crisp night which gave birth to Stopping by Woods. It was a stretch of the imagination, though, since I was there in July. The area is still remote and peaceful, and I was rewarded by a visit from a bluebird.
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Carpal Tunnel
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After thinking about it some more, I'm still surprised that
Frost had the courage to go to England if his only capital
was proceeds from sale of a marginal farm in New Hampshire.
England has precious and plentiful cultural resources, but I don't see how they would have been any help to him.
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Hi Bill!
I'm not entirely sure why Frost went to England, but I get the feeling it was to get published. Perhaps that market was more open to him. I know he made writer contacts there who seemed to help him.
Just found this:
In 1912, at the age of 38, he sold the farm and used the proceeds to take his family to England, where he could devote himself entirely to writing. His efforts to establish himself and his work were almost immediately successful. A Boy's Will was accepted by a London publisher and brought out in 1913, followed a year later by North of Boston. Favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic resulted in American publication of the books by Henry Holt and Company, Frost's primary American publisher, and in the establishing of Frost's transatlantic reputation.
As part of his determined efforts on his own behalf, Frost had called on several prominent literary figures soon after his arrival in England. One of these was Ezra POUND, who wrote the first American review of Frost's verse for Harriet Munroe's Poetry magazine. (Though he disliked Pound, Frost was later instrumental in obtaining Pound's release from long confinement in a Washington, D.C., mental hospital.) Frost was more favorably impressed and more lastingly influenced by the so-called Georgian poets Lascelles Abercrombie, Rupert BROOKE, and T. E. Hulme, whose rural subjects and style were more in keeping with his own. While living near the Georgians in Gloucestershire, Frost became especially close to a brooding Welshman named Edward Thomas, whom he urged to turn from prose to poetry. Thomas did so, dedicating his first and only volume of verse to Frost before his death in World War I.
I know very little about the publishing world, especially from 1914. Maybe going to England and meeting these contacts was a good way to break into the writing world. Likely someone here knows the answer though.
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Hi Sparteye!
The area is still remote and peaceful, and I was rewarded by a visit from a bluebird.
Cool! I've never been to New England. It sounds lovely and inspiring.
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