Out, Out—

“Home Burial” by Robert Frost (1914)

“Home Burial,” also by Frost, offers a good companion piece to “‘Out, Out—.’” While it too addresses the death of a child, its focus is on the survivors, the parents, whose different grieving processes bring them into conflict. Like “‘Out, Out—,’” it is a narrative and rendered in iambic pentameter. However, unlike “‘Out, Out—,’” which consists almost wholly as third-person narration, the vital portions of “Home Burial” consist of dialogue between the two parents.

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost (1923)

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is another Frost poem that deals with death, but it differs from “‘Out, Out—’” in several ways. First, the speaker speaks in the first person and is the sole character in the poem (unlike the detached, mostly third-person speaker of “‘Out, Out—’”). Second, rather than confronting death directly, this poem does so obliquely—and some may argue it does not address death at all. Third, rather than treating death as tragic and to be avoided, this poem treats it as something tempting to pursue.

“Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost (1928)

“Acquainted with the Night” does not deal with death as does “‘Out, Out—,’” but it does address the sense of isolation and alienation pervasive in Modernist poetry and hinted at in the latter poem. It is also a unique piece formally, being a sonnet utilizing a terza rima rhyme scheme. One might view the prosody here as Frost’s finest.