Robert Frost, who turned 20 in 1894, uncertain of his gift, bouncing among stray gigs (actor’s manager, repairer of lights at a wool mill) in Lawrence, Massachusetts, had written a poem called ...

“On reading ‘My Butterfly,’ ” Adam Plunkett writes in his new Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost’s Poetry, “the poetry editor called the rest of the staff over to listen because ...