M-153
Ford Road
M-153 highlighted in red
Route information
Maintained by MDOT
Length:	25.127 mi[2] (40.438 km)
Existed:	December 2, 1930[1] – present
Major junctions
West end:	M-14 near Ann Arbor
	I-275 in Canton US 24 in Dearborn
East end:	I-94 / US 12 at Detroit western city line
Location
Counties:	Washtenaw, Wayne
Highway system
Michigan State Trunkline Highway System Interstate • US • State • Heritage Routes ← M-152 M-154 →

M-153 is a state trunkline highway in the Metro Detroit area of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also known as Ford Road for nearly its entire length, except for its westernmost portion where the highway follows a short expressway Ford Road to the M-14 freeway. Named for William Ford, father of Henry Ford, Ford Road runs from near Dixboro to the Dearborn–Detroit border. The M-153 designation continues along Wyoming Avenue where it terminates at a junction with Interstate 94 (I-94) and US Highway 12 (US 12) on the city line.

Ford Road has been a part of the state highway system since December 3, 1930. Since the state has maintained the roadway as M-153, it has been extended westward from Wayne County into Washtenaw County and upgraded in sections to expressway conditions. The first of these improvements were made in the 1930s with additional upgrades in the 1960s and 1970s. The last change was made by 1980 to create the modern routing.

Route description[link]

M-153 starts as an interchange with M-14's exit 10 in Superior Township east of Ann Arbor. The highway starts as an expressway curving southeasterly to meet Ford Road near the curve eastward in the expressway at Frains Lake Road, a gravel road northeast of of the unincorporated community of Dixboro. Ford Road continues west of here to end at Plymouth Road south of the M-14 freeway, and east of this location, M-153 follows Ford Road through wooded, partially developed terrain to the Washtenaw–Wayne county line at Napier Road. Near the county line are farms until Ford Road reaches residential subdivisions at Ridge Road in Canton Township. At the east edge of the township, Ford Road meets I-275 at exit 25 before passing into Westland between Lotz and Hix roads.^[3][4]

The interchange with I-275 is built over the western crossing of Willow Creek, a tributary of the River Rouge; the eastern crossing is located between Hix and Newburgh roads near Central City Park.^[4] Ford Road continues east, forming a section of the Garden City boundary near Venoy Road. The trunkline crosses into Dearborn Heights at Inkster Road. It forms the boundary between Dearborn and Dearborn Heights between Gulley and Evergreen roads, crossing US 24 (Telegraph Road) in between. East of Telegraph Road, M-153 is built to expressway standards complete with interchanges at Edward N. Hines Drive, Evergreen Road, M-39 (Southfield Freeway) and Greenfield Road. The highway crosses the River Rouge north of the Dearborn Country Club west of Evergreen Road. Ford Road ends at Wyoming Avenue. M-153 turns south along Wyoming Avenue to cross I-94 at exit 210. This interchange is also the location where I-94 and US 12 (Michigan Avenue) cross, marking the eastern end of M-153 at Michigan Avenue.^[3][4]

Ford Road serves as the zero-mile line for the Detroit area's Mile Road System.^[5] From the Canton Center Road intersection eastward, all of M-153 is a part of the National Highway System,^[6] a network of roads important to the country's economy, defense, and mobility.^[7] M-153 is maintained by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) like other state highways in Michigan. As a part of these maintenance responsibilities, the department tracks the volume of traffic that uses the roadways under its jurisdiction. These volumes are expressed using a metric called annual average daily traffic, which is a statistical calculation of the average daily number of vehicles on a segment of roadway. MDOT's surveys in 2010 showed that the highest traffic levels along M-13 were the 64,956 vehicles daily between the River Rouge and the Southfield Freeway in Dearborn; the lowest counts were the 10,380 vehicles per day between Plymouth Road and the end of the expressway in Superior Township.^[8]

History[link]

Ford Road was named for William Ford, father of automobile pioneer Henry Ford. The elder Ford was born in Ireland and settled in Dearborn Township in 1847. William's carpentry business lead him around to regional businesses and neighbors, traveling the area until he took up the family business of farming after marriage to Mary Litogot. They settled on a farm near the intersection of modern-day Ford Road and Greenfield Avenue; this farm was Henry's birthplace in 1863. Settling into his family life, William started serving the local community. He was a road commissioner, school board member and a justice of the peace. In honor of his accomplishments, Ford Road was named in his honor before his death in March 1905.^[1]

Ford Road remained in township jurisdiction until August 29, 1924 when it was transferred to Wayne County control. It was transferred again to state control on December 2, 1930. The Michigan State Highway Department designated it M-153 upon transfer to their responsibility.^[1] The highway designation was determined to continue west of the county line into Washtenaw County as a northerly bypass of Ann Arbor, but the segment between Canton Center Road and US 12 on Plymouth Road was not built at the time.^[9] The first extension west was finished in 1933 from the county line to Napier Road.^[10] The road was widened into a major thoroughfare between Detroit and Ann Arbor in 1934, to relieve congestion on Michigan Avenue.^[1] The highway bypass of Ann Arbor was cancelled by 1935, leaving the western terminus at US 12 (Plymouth Road).^[11]

Intersection of M-153 and M-14, facing west viewed from intersection at Plymouth Road; until 1980 this section of highway was part of M-14.

Construction of a northerly freeway bypass of Ann Arbor along M-14 to M-153 was completed by 1965. A second freeway section was built between Ford Road at Frains Lake Road to the contemporary end of the M-14 freeway. This second freeway was assigned as part of M-153 and the former routing along Ford Road west to Plymouth Road was removed from the state trunkline highway system.^[12][13] A reconstruction project along M-153 in 1973 was completed, bringing the highway up to expressway standards. Several interchanges were built along the segment starting west of the M-39 (Southfield Freeway) to I-94 in Dearborn.^[14][15] The last extension moved the western terminus in early 1980 when the M-14 freeway was completed, and M-153 was extended along a section of freeway used to connect the previous end of the M-14 freeway to Plymouth Road.^[16][17]

Major intersections[link]

All exits are unnumbered.

County	Location	Mile[2]	km	Destinations	Notes
Washtenaw	Superior Township	0.000	0.000	M-14 – Ann Arbor, Detroit	Exit 10 on M-14
Wayne	Canton	10.337	16.636	I-275 – Flint, Toledo	Exit 25 on I-275
	Dearborn	14.005	22.539	US 24 (Telegraph Road)
		15.404	24.790	Edward N. Hines Drive north	Interchange
		15.967	25.696	Evergreen Road	Interchange
		19.012	30.597	M-39 (Southfield Freeway)	Exit 7 on M-39
		17.963	28.909	Greenfield Road	Interchange
	Dearborn– Detroit	25.050– 25.127	40.314– 40.438	I-94 – Detroit, Chicago US 12 (Michigan Avenue)	Exit 210 on I-94
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi

See also[link]

• Metro Detroit portal
• Michigan Highways portal

References[link]

External links[link]

• M-153 at Michigan Highways

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (November 2011)

Robben Ford
Background information
Born	(1951-12-16) December 16, 1951 (age 60) Woodlake, California, United States
Genres	Blues, jazz/fusion, rock
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, saxophone
Years active	1969–present
Associated acts	John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Yellowjackets, Chick Corea, Gregg Allman Band, L.A. Express
Website	Robbenford.com
Notable instruments
Baker Guitars Robben Ford Signature Model

Robben Ford (born December 16, 1951)^[1] is an American blues, jazz and rock guitarist. He was a member of the L.A. Express and has collaborated with Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison and KISS. He was named one of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th Century" by Musician magazine.

Early life[link]

Ford was born in Woodlake, California and raised in Ukiah, California. He began playing the saxophone at age 10 and the guitar at age 14. Ford and his brothers Mark (harmonica) and Patrick (drums) created a band and named it the Charles Ford Blues Band in honor of their father.^[2]

Career[link]

Ford has received four Grammy Award nominations   and was named one of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th Century" by Musician magazine.^[3]

At age 18 Ford and the Charles Ford Blues Band were hired as a backup band for Charlie Musselwhite.^[1] The band also recorded two albums The Charles Ford Band and Discovering the Blues. Ford recorded two albums with the Witherspoon's called Live and Spoonful'. The Ford Blues Band reunites periodically, and released live albums in the 1980s and 1990s. In the 1970s, Ford branched out into jazz fusion, and joined the band, L.A. Express ,^[1] led by saxophonist Tom Scott in 1974. That same year the band supported George Harrison on his American tour and Joni Mitchell's on albums, Court and Spark, Hissing of Summer Lawns and Miles of Aisles.^[1]

After leaving the L.A. Express in 1976, Ford recorded his solo album, The Inside Story with a band that later became the Yellowjackets.^[1] In 1982, Ford was one of several guitarists who appeared on the KISS album Creatures of the Night, playing the lead guitar on the songs "Rock And Roll Hell" and "I Still Love You".

Miles Davis & Robben Ford in Montreux in 1986

Ford worked briefly with Miles Davis in 1986;^[1] and can be heard on Davis' Montreux box set. Ford released his next album, Talk to Your Daughter in 1988. In 1989 he joined Philippe Saisse, Marcus Miller and J.T. Lewis in the cast of The Sunday Night Band for the second and final season of the late-night NBC television program, Sunday Night.^[4] In the 1990s he released the albums, Robben Ford and the Blue Line, and Tiger Walk. Ford continued his collaborations with bands and artists such as Jing Chi, Gregg Allman and Phil Lesh.

Equipment[link]

Ford uses Dumble Amplifiers and Celestion G12-65 speakers. When traveling abroad he uses Fender Super Reverb amplifiers along with a Zendrive overdrive pedal by Hermida Audio. Lately, Ford favors a vintage 1960 Fender Telecaster, Gibson Les Pauls and a custom-made guitar made by Taku Sakashta.^[5]

Personal life[link]

Ford is married to the cabaret singer Anne Kerry Ford. His nephew, Gabe Ford, is also a musician.^{[citation needed]}

Discography[link]

Solo albums[link]

• Discovering the Blues Live (1972)
• Jimmy Witherspoon & Robben Ford Live (1976)
• Schizophonic (1976)
• The Inside Story (1979)
• Love's A Heartache (1983)
• Keep on Running (1983)
• Talk to Your Daughter (1988)
• Robben Ford and the Blue Line (1992)
• Mystic Mile (1993)
• Handful of Blues (1995)
• Blues Connotation (1996)
• Tiger Walk (1997)
• Supernatural (1999)
• Sunrise (1999)
• A Tribute to Paul Butterfield (2001)
• Blue Moon (2002)
• Keep on Running (2003)
• Truth (2007)
• Soul on Ten (2009)

Live albums[link]

• Discovering the Blues Live (1972)
• The Authorized Bootleg (1998)
• Soul on Ten (2009)

Compilations[link]

• Blues Collection (1997)
• Anthology: The Early Years (2001)

With Ford Blues Band[link]

• The Charles Ford Band (1972)
• Reunion Live (1984)
• As Real As It Gets(1996)
• Hotshots (1994)
• Fords and Friends (1996)
• Ford Blues Band (1999)
• Tribute to Paul Butterfield (2001)
• In Memory of Michael Bloomfield (2002)
• Another Fine Day (2003)
• Centre Stage (2004)

With Mark Ford[link]

• Mark Ford and the Robben Ford Band (1990)
• Mark Ford and the Blue Line

Collaborations[link]

• Minor Elegance (1990) with Joe Diorio, Gary Willis and Peter Erskine
• Jing Chi (2001) with Vinnie Colaiuta, Jimmy Haslip
• Jing Chi Live (2003)
• Jing Chi 3D (2004)
• Charlie Haden - Helium Tears (2006)
• Larry Carlton - Live In Tokyo (2007)
• Sonny Landreth - From the Reach (2008)
• With Michael Landau, Jimmy Haslip, Gary Novak - Renegade Creation (2010)

Albums played on[link]

• F-Zero Jazz Album (1992)
• Voodoo Crossing: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix (2003) Message To Love
• Viva Carlos - A Supernatural Marathon Celebration (2004) Blues For Salvador
• A Guitar Supreme - A Giant Step In Fusion Guitar (2006) Village Blues
• Come Together 2; Beatles Guitar Tribute (2000?) Golden Slumbers

As sideman[link]

With Charlie Musselwhite

• Takin' My Time (Arhoolie 1056) (1973)
• Going Back Down South (Arhoolie 1074) (1975)

With Joni Mitchell

• Miles of Aisles (1974)
• The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975)

With Tom Scott and the LA Express

• Tom Cat (1974)

With Dizzy Gillespie

• Rhythmstick (1990)

With Charlie Musselwhite

• Where Have All The Good Times Gone (1984)

With Jimmy Witherspoon

• Live at Monterey Jazz Festival (1972)
• Live (1976)
• Live at Notodden Blues Festival (1992)
• Ain't Nothing New About The Blues (1995)

With Kiss

• Creatures of the Night (1982)

With Georgie Fame

• Cool Cat Blues (1991)

With Rickie Lee Jones

• Pop Pop (1991)

With Bob Malach

• Mood Swing (1991)

With Miles Davis

• The Complete Miles Davis at Montreux (2002)

Instructional DVDs[link]

• The Art of Blues Rhythm
• Playing the Blues
• The Blues and Beyond

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• 2007 Modern Guitars interview by Brian D. Holland
• Interview at Digital Interviews
• 'Worried Life Blues' Performed Live in Germany 1994
• Blue Rock It

Robert Frost
Robert Frost (1941)
Born	Robert Lee Frost (1874-03-26)March 26, 1874 San Francisco, California, United States
Died	January 29, 1963(1963-01-29) (aged 88) Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Occupation	Poet, playwright
Notable work(s)	A Boy's Will, North of Boston
Influences Robert Graves, Rupert Brooke, Thomas Hardy, William Butler Yeats, John Keats
Influenced Seamus Heaney, Richard Wilbur, Edward Thomas
Signature

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech.^[1] His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. One of the most popular and critically respected American poets of his generation, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Robert Frost, circa 1910

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California, to journalist William Prescott Frost, Jr., and Isabelle Moodie.^[1] His mother was of Scottish descent, and his father descended from Nicholas Frost of Tiverton, Devon, England, who had sailed to New Hampshire in 1634 on the Wolfrana.^{[citation needed]}

Frost's father was a teacher and later an editor of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin (which later merged with the San Francisco Examiner), and an unsuccessful candidate for city tax collector. After his death on May 5, 1885, the family moved across the country to Lawrence, Massachusetts, under the patronage of (Robert's grandfather) William Frost, Sr., who was an overseer at a New England mill. Frost graduated from Lawrence High School in 1892.^[2] Frost's mother joined the Swedenborgian church and had him baptized in it, but he left it as an adult.

Although known for his later association with rural life, Frost grew up in the city, and he published his first poem in his high school's magazine. He attended Dartmouth College for two months, long enough to be accepted into the Theta Delta Chi fraternity. Frost returned home to teach and to work at various jobs – including helping his mother teach her class of unruly boys, delivering newspapers, and working in a factory as an arclight carbon filament changer. He did not enjoy these jobs, feeling his true calling was poetry.

Adult years[link]

Frost, 1959

In 1894 he sold his first poem, "My Butterfly. An Elegy" (published in the November 8, 1894, edition of the New York Independent) for $15 - equivalent in spending power to at least $300 today. Proud of his accomplishment, he proposed marriage to Elinor Miriam White, but she demurred, wanting to finish college (at St. Lawrence University) before they married. Frost then went on an excursion to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and asked Elinor again upon his return. Having graduated, she agreed, and they were married at Lawrence, Massachusetts on December 19, 1895.(Thompson and Meyers)

Frost attended Harvard University from 1897–1899, but he left voluntarily due to illness.^[3][4][5] Shortly before dying, Robert's grandfather purchased a farm for Robert and Elinor in Derry, New Hampshire; and Robert worked the farm for nine years, while writing early in the mornings and producing many of the poems that would later become famous. Ultimately his farming proved unsuccessful and he returned to the field of education as an English teacher at New Hampshire's Pinkerton Academy from 1906 to 1911, then at the New Hampshire Normal School (now Plymouth State University) in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

In 1912 Frost sailed with his family to Great Britain, settling first in Beaconsfield, a small town outside London. His first book of poetry, A Boy's Will, was published the next year. In England he made some important acquaintances, including Edward Thomas (a member of the group known as the Dymock Poets), T.E. Hulme, and Ezra Pound. Although Pound would become the first American to write a (favorable) review of Frost's work, Frost later resented Pound's attempts to manipulate his American prosody. Frost met or befriended many contemporary poets in England, especially after his first two poetry volumes were published in London in 1913 (A Boy's Will) and 1914 (North of Boston).

The Robert Frost Farm in Derry, New Hampshire, where he wrote many of his poems, including "Tree at My Window" and "Mending Wall."

As World War I began, Frost returned to America in 1915 and bought a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire, where he launched a career of writing, teaching and lecturing. This family homestead served as the Frosts' summer home until 1938. It is maintained today as The Frost Place, a museum and poetry conference site. During the years 1916–20, 1923–24, and 1927–1938, Frost taught English at Amherst College in Massachusetts, notably encouraging his students to account for the myriad sounds and intonations of the spoken English language in their writing. He called his colloquial approach to language "the sound of sense." ^[6]

In 1924, he won the first of four Pulitzer Prizes for the book New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes. He would win additional Pulitzers for Collected Poems in 1931, A Further Range in 1937, and A Witness Tree in 1943.^[7]

The Frost family grave in Bennington Old Cemetery

For forty-two years – from 1921 to 1963 - Frost spent almost every summer and fall teaching at the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College, at its mountain campus at Ripton, Vermont. He is credited as a major influence upon the development of the school and its writing programs The college now owns and maintains his former Ripton farmstead as a national historic site near the Bread Loaf campus. In 1921 Frost accepted a fellowship teaching post at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he resided until 1927; while there he was awarded a lifetime appointment at the University as a Fellow in Letters.^[8] The Robert Frost Ann Arbor home is now situated at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Frost returned to Amherst in 1927. In 1940 he bought a 5-acre (2.0 ha) plot in South Miami, Florida, naming it Pencil Pines; he spent his winters there for the rest of his life.^[9] His property also includes a dwelling on Brewster Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that today belongs to the National Historic Register.

Harvard's 1965 alumni directory indicates Frost received an honorary degree there. Although he never graduated from college, Frost received over 40 honorary degrees, including ones from Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge universities; and was the only person to receive two honorary degrees from Dartmouth College. During his lifetime, the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia, the Robert L. Frost School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the main library of Amherst College were named after him.

Frost was 86 when he performed a reading of his well-known poem "The Gift Outright" at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961. He died in Boston two years later, on January 29, 1963, of complications from prostate surgery. He was buried at the Old Bennington Cemetery in Bennington, Vermont. His epitaph quotes a line from one of his poems: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

One of the original collections of Frost materials, to which he himself contributed, is found in the Special Collections department of the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts. The collection consists of approximately twelve thousand items, including original manuscript poems and letters, correspondence and photographs, as well as audio and visual recordings.^[10] The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds a small collection of his papers. The most significant collection of Frost's working manuscripts is held by Dartmouth.

Critical response[link]

This article contains too many or too-lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry. Please help improve the article by editing it to take facts from excessively quoted material and rewrite them as sourced original prose. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote. (March 2012)

The poet/critic Randall Jarrell often praised Frost's poetry and wrote the following appraisal of Frost's career:

Robert Frost, along with Stevens and Eliot, seems to me the greatest of the American poets of this century. Frost's virtues are extraordinary. No other living poet has written so well about the actions of ordinary men; his wonderful dramatic monologues or dramatic scenes come out of a knowledge of people that few poets have had, and they are written in a verse that uses, sometimes with absolute mastery, the rhythms of actual speech. It is hard to overestimate the effect of this exact, spaced-out, prosaic movement, whose objects have the tremendous strength. . .of things merely put down and left to speak for themselves. . .Frost's seriousness and honesty; the bare sorrow with which, sometimes, things are accepted as they are, neither exaggerated nor explained away; the many, many poems in which there are real people with their real speech and real thought and real emotion—all this, in conjunction with so much subtlety and exactness. . .makes the reader feel that he is not in a book but a world. . .When you know Frost's poems, you know surprisingly well what the world seemed to one man. The grimness and awfulness, and untouchable sadness of things, both in the world and in the self, have justice done to them in the poems. . .but no more justice than is done to the tenderness and love and delight; and everything in between is respresented somewhere too.^[11]

U.S stamp, 1974

Jarrell's notable and influential essays on Frost include the essays "Robert Frost's 'Home Burial'" (1962), which consisted of an extended close reading of that particular poem, and "To The Laodiceans" (1952) in which Jarrell defended Frost against critics who had accused Frost of being too "traditional" and out of touch with Modern or Modernist poetry. In Frost's defense, Jarrell wrote "the regular ways of looking at Frost's poetry are grotesque simplifications, distortions, falsifications--coming to know his poetry well ought to be enough, in itself, to dispel any of them, and to make plain the necessity of finding some other way of talking about his work." And Jarrell's close readings of poems like "Neither Out Too Far Nor In Too Deep" led to readers and critics to perceive more of the complexities in Frost's poetry.^[12][13]

In an introduction to Jarrell's book of essays, Brad Leithauser notes that, "the 'other' Frost that Jarrell discerned behind the genial, homespun New England rustic—the 'dark' Frost who was desperate, frightened, and brave—has become the Frost we've all learned to recognize, and the little-known poems Jarrell singled out as central to the Frost cannon are now to be found in most anthologies." ^[14][15]

Jarrell lists a selection of which Frost poems he considers the most masterful, including "The Witch of Coös," "Home Burial," "A Servant to Servants," "Directive," "Neither Out Too Far Nor In Too Deep," "Provide, Provide," "Acquainted with the Night," "After Apple Picking," "Mending Wall," "The Most of It," "An Old Man's Winter Night," "To Earthward," "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Spring Pools," "The Lovely Shall Be Choosers," "Design," [and] "Desert Places."^[16]

In The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, editors Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair write the following assessment of Frost's style:

The poetry of Frost has some kinship with that of Robinson in its choice of a New England setting and in its attempt to be true to the peculiarities of the region. But Frost's idiom is much less literary, and here he seems to have learned a little from Hardy and from Yeats's peasant plays. But even his earliest poems show a successful striving for utter colloquialism. This did not entail any surrender to form; he prided himself, for all his country accents, on being close to his favorite Latin poet Horace in the way his poem were chiseled out. Free verse was like playing tennis without a net, he [famously] said. To secure his effect Frost emptied his verse of any hint of the grand manner; John Crowe Ransom has remarked that he was startled during his own boyhood to discover that Frost's poetry had no kings or queens in it. Certainly the revival of Arthurian materials by his compatriot Robinson struck Frost as absurd. He prided himself, too, on staying close to earth, and objected to what he called "Platonism" in poetry, an insistence on essence without matter.^[17]

In providing an overview of Frost's style, the Poetry Foundation succinctly describes Frost's unique place in modern American letters:

In a sense, Frost stands at the crossroads of nineteenth-century American poetry and modernism, for in his verse may be found the culmination of many nineteenth-century tendencies and traditions as well as parallels to the works of his twentieth-century contemporaries. Taking his symbols from the public domain, Frost developed, as many critics note, an original, modern idiom and a sense of directness and economy that reflect the imagism of Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell. On the other hand, as Leonard Unger and William Van O'Connor point out in Poems for Study, "Frost's poetry, unlike that of such contemporaries as Eliot, Stevens, and the later Yeats, shows no marked departure from the poetic practices of the nineteenth century." Although he avoids traditional verse forms and only uses rhyme erratically, Frost is not an innovator and his technique is never experimental. . .[Instead] Frost took up nineteenth-century tools and made them new. Lawrence Thompson has explained that, according to Frost, "the self-imposed restrictions of meter in form and of coherence in content" work to a poet's advantage; they liberate him from the experimentalist's burden—the perpetual search for new forms and alternative structures.^[18]

Personal life[link]

Robert Frost's personal life was plagued with grief and loss. In 1885 when Frost was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with just eight dollars. Frost's mother died of cancer in 1900. In 1920, Frost had to commit his younger sister Jeanie to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later. Mental illness apparently ran in Frost's family, as both he and his mother suffered from depression, and his daughter Irma was committed to a mental hospital in 1947. Frost's wife, Elinor, also experienced bouts of depression.^[8]

Elinor and Robert Frost had six children: son Elliot (1896–1904, died of cholera); daughter Lesley Frost Ballantine (1899–1983); son Carol (1902–1940, committed suicide); daughter Irma (1903–1967); daughter Marjorie (1905–1934, died as a result of puerperal fever after childbirth); and daughter Elinor Bettina (died just three days after her birth in 1907). Only Lesley and Irma outlived their father. Frost's wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, developed breast cancer in 1937, and died of heart failure in 1938.^[8]

Selected works[link]

Poems[link]

Poetry collections[link]

• North of Boston (David Nutt, 1914; Holt, 1914)
  • "Mending Wall"
• Mountain Interval (Holt, 1916)
  • "The Road Not Taken"
• Selected Poems (Holt, 1923)

Includes poems from first three volumes and the poem The Runaway

• New Hampshire (Holt, 1923; Grant Richards, 1924)
• Several Short Poems (Holt, 1924)[2]
• Selected Poems (Holt, 1928)
• West-Running Brook (Holt, 1928? 1929)
• The Lovely Shall Be Choosers, The Poetry Quartos, printed and illustrated by Paul Johnston (Random House, 1929)
• Collected Poems of Robert Frost (Holt, 1930; Longmans, Green, 1930)
• The Lone Striker (Knopf, 1933)
• Selected Poems: Third Edition (Holt, 1934)
• Three Poems (Baker Library, Dartmouth College, 1935)
• The Gold Hesperidee (Bibliophile Press, 1935)
• From Snow to Snow (Holt, 1936)
• A Further Range (Holt, 1936; Cape, 1937)
• Collected Poems of Robert Frost (Holt, 1939; Longmans, Green, 1939)
• A Witness Tree (Holt, 1942; Cape, 1943)
• Come In, and Other Poems (1943)
• Steeple Bush (Holt, 1947)
• Complete Poems of Robert Frost, 1949 (Holt, 1949; Cape, 1951)
• Hard Not To Be King (House of Books, 1951)
• Aforesaid (Holt, 1954)
• A Remembrance Collection of New Poems (Holt, 1959)
• You Come Too (Holt, 1959; Bodley Head, 1964)
• In the Clearing (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1962)
• The Poetry of Robert Frost (New York, 1969)
• A Further Range (published as Further Range in 1926, as New Poems by Holt, 1936; Cape, 1937)
• Nothing Gold Can Stay
• What Fifty Said
• Fire And Ice
• A Drumlin Woodchuck

Plays[link]

• A Way Out: A One Act Play (Harbor Press, 1929).
• The Cow's in the Corn: A One Act Irish Play in Rhyme (Slide Mountain Press, 1929).
• A Masque of Reason (Holt, 1945).
• A Masque of Mercy (Holt, 1947).

Prose[link]

• The Letters of Robert Frost to Louis Untermeyer (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963; Cape, 1964).
• Robert Frost and John Bartlett: The Record of a Friendship, by Margaret Bartlett Anderson (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963).
• Selected Letters of Robert Frost (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964).
• Interviews with Robert Frost (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966; Cape, 1967).
• Family Letters of Robert and Elinor Frost (State University of New York Press, 1972).
• Robert Frost and Sidney Cox: Forty Years of Friendship (University Press of New England, 1981).
• The Notebooks of Robert Frost, edited by Robert Faggen (Harvard University Press, January 2007). [3]

Omnibus volumes[link]

• Collected Poems, Prose and Plays (Richard Poirier, ed.) (Library of America, 1995) ISBN 978-1-883011-06-2.

Spoken word[link]

• Robert Frost Reads His Poetry, Caedmon Records, 1957, TC1060

Pulitzer Prizes[link]

• 1924 for New Hampshire: A Poem With Notes and Grace Notes
• 1931 for Collected Poems
• 1937 for A Further Range
• 1943 for A Witness Tree

Notes[link]

Sources[link]

• Pritchard, William H. (2000). "Frost's Life and Career" (http). http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/life.htm. Retrieved March 18, 2001. 
• Taylor, Welford Dunaway (1996). Robert Frost and J.J. Lankes: Riders on Pegasus. Hanover, New Hampshire: Dartmouth College Library. ASIN B0006FAO4Q. 
• Burlington Free Press, January 8, 2008 Article: Vandalized Frost house drew a crowd
• Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays. 10/1995 Library of America. Robert Frost. Edited by Richard Poirier and Mark Richardson. Trade ISBN 1-883011-06-X. [4]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Robert Frost

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Robert Frost

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Robert Frost

• Profile and poems at the Academy of American Poets
• Robert Frost, profile and poems at the Poetry Foundation
• Robert Profile at Modern American Poetry
• Richard Poirier (Summer-Fall 1960). "Robert Frost, The Art of Poetry No. 2". The Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4678/the-art-of-poetry-no-2-robert-frost. 
• Robert Frost Collection in Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst, MA
• Robert Frost Collection in Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College, Amherst, MA
• Robert Frost at Bread Loaf (Middlebury College)
• Robert Frost Farm in Derry, NH
• Robert Frost Out Loud: audio recordings and commentary on many Frost poems
• Glyn Maxwell (Fall 2006). "Dead on a Side Track: On Frost’s "War Thoughts at Home"". The Virginia Quarterly Review: 120–133. http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2006/fall/maxwell-dead-side-track/. 
• Student finds Frost poem lost for 88 years
• The Frost Foundation
• The Frost Place, a museum and poetry conference center in Franconia, N.H.
• Works by or about Robert Frost in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Robert Frost reading his poems at Harper Audio (recordings from 1956)
• Yale College Lecture on Robert Frost audio, video and full transcripts from Open Yale Courses

Colt Ford
Photo By Jason Accomando
Background information
Birth name	Jason Farris Brown
Origin	Athens, Georgia, U.S.[1]
Genres	Country rap
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, Guitar, Drums
Years active	2008-present
Labels	Average Joe's Entertainment
Associated acts	Brantley Gilbert, Kevin Fowler, Montgomery Gentry, Josh Gracin, Matt Stillwell, Jamie Davis & Soul Gravy
Website	http://www.coltford.com

Jason Farris Brown (born in Athens, Georgia) known professionally as Colt Ford, is an American country music artist and former professional golfer. He has released three albums via his own Average Joe's label, and has charted four singles on the Hot Country Songs charts. Ford has also written a theme song for Professional Bull Riders, and has worked with John Michael Montgomery, Montgomery Gentry, Cledus T. Judd, and Brantley Gilbert among others.

Biography[link]

"Take a hefty portion of Southern charm, add a dash of country livin’, a pinch of urban style, wash it all down with a sweet, fresh sound, and you have Colt Ford. A man with such a blend of unique talents and tastes can only be the natural recipe for this new sound and musical format.(Average Joes Ent.)"

Brown was born and raised in Athens, Georgia. He was a professional golfer,^[1] playing in one Nationwide Tour but mostly serving as a golfing instructor.^[2] Later, he turned his interests to music, taking influence from country music and hip hop.^[1] Assuming the stage name Colt Ford, he released his debut album, Ride Through the Country, on December 2, 2008 through Average Joe's Entertainment, which he cofounded.^[3] This album included the singles "No Trash in My Trailer"^[4] (a cover of a Gene Watson song) and "Ride Through the Country" (a duet with John Michael Montgomery), the latter of which did not chart until the week of October 10, 2009 when it debuted at #57 on the Hot Country Songs chart. He also appeared on a rap remix of Montgomery Gentry's late-2008 Number One single "Roll with Me."^[5] Ford's debut album also has guest appearances from country singer Jamey Johnson, as well as Bone Crusher and Jermaine Dupri, Adrian Young of NoDoubt and Jeremy Popoff of Lit.^[6] The album did not enter the Billboard albums charts until 2009.

Ford co-wrote and originally recorded the song "Dirt Road Anthem" for his debut album Ride Through the Country, which was later released by Brantley Gilbert who co wrote the song on his 2010 album Halfway to Heaven,^[7] and again by Jason Aldean on his album My Kinda Party, also from 2010.^[8]

Ford wrote the theme song "Buck 'em" for the Professional Bull Riders association. He also appears as a guest vocalist on the track "Tailgatin'" on Cledus T. Judd's 2009 album Polyrically Uncorrect, a song which Ford wrote with Johnson and Popoff.^[9] Ford's second studio album, Chicken & Biscuits, was released in April 2010, following the release of its title track.

Ford released a third studio album on May 3, 2011 called Every Chance I Get.^[10] The album's lead-off single, "Country Thang", debuted at number 55 on country charts for the chart week ending February 19, 2011. "She Likes to Ride in Trucks", featuring Craig Morgan, serves as the album's second single.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Extended plays[link]

Live albums[link]

Singles[link]

Other charted songs[link]

Music videos[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]

David Ford MLA
Minister of Justice
Incumbent
Assumed office 12 April 2010
First Minister	Peter Robinson
Preceded by	New Creation
Leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
Incumbent
Assumed office 2001
Preceded by	Séan Neeson
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for South Antrim
Incumbent
Assumed office 25 June 1998
Preceded by	New Creation
Personal details
Born	(1951-02-24) 24 February 1951 (age 61)
Political party	Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
Spouse(s)	Anne Ford
Children	4
Alma mater	Queen's University Belfast
Religion	Presbyterian
Website	http://www.davidford.org/

David Ford (born 24 February 1951) is a politician who is a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Ford has been leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland since 2001 and has been Northern Ireland Minister of Justice since April 2010.

Early life[link]

Ford was born on 24 February 1951 to Northern Irish and Welsh parents and grew up in Orpington, Kent, England. Ford was educated at Warren Road Primary School, Orpington and Dulwich College, London. He spent summer holidays on his uncle's farm in Gortin, County Tyrone, and moved to Northern Ireland permanently in 1969 when he went to study Economics at Queen's University Belfast. There he joined the university's student Alliance Party grouping. After graduating, Ford took a year out to work as a volunteer at the ecumenical Corrymeela Community in Ballycastle, County Antrim, before starting work as a social worker in 1973.

Political career[link]

Ford stood unsuccessfully for Antrim Borough Council in 1989, and entered politics full-time when be became general secretary of the Alliance Party. In that role, he was best known as a strong supporter of the then-leader John Alderdice and an advocate of better political organisation and community politics. He was elected to Antrim Borough Council in 1993, 1997 and - after leaving the Council in 2001 to concentrate on Assembly business - again in 2005.

In 1996, Ford stood unsuccessfully for election to the Northern Ireland Forum in South Antrim, but was a key member^{[citation needed]} of Alliance's team to the talks which led to the Good Friday Agreement. In 1997, he obtained 12% of the vote in the British General Election in South Antrim, and in 1998 was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the constituency of the same name. He fought South Antrim again in the 2000 by-election and in the 2001 and 2005 general elections.

Alliance Party leadership[link]

This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed. (April 2010)

In 2001, Séan Neeson resigned from the Party leadership following poor election results. David Ford won the leadership election on 6 October by 86 votes to 45, ahead of Eileen Bell. Ford was identified^{[by whom?]} with the more Liberal, internationalist wing of Alliance, while Bell was a more traditionalist, bridge-building, candidate.^{[citation needed]} Notably, Ford was also the only Alliance MLA to be also a member of the Liberal Democrats at the time.

Ford outlined his internationalist view point in his speech at the leadership selection when he said:

I am keen to co-operate with other non-sectarian groups in Northern Ireland, including political parties that will stand against the tribal divide. Our links to the South are not as good as they should be, either with the PDs or with Fine Gael, where we have many natural allies. We must also recognise that Northern Ireland is not unique in the world. Our stand is not different in substance from those who work for peace and reconciliation in Cyprus, Palestine or Bosnia. We should learn from friends abroad. To suggest that 'our wee province' is unique is to do a disservice. There is little more objectionable than the sight of the political begging bowl being dragged out by sectional politicians.

Ford gave Alliance a stability which it had lacked since the departure of John Alderdice, but the Party had declined seriously in the late 1990s and all Ford could do was stabilise the situation. Within a month of taking over the leadership, however, Ford had a chance to establish Alliance's relevancy in the post-Good Friday Agreement environment - on 6 November 2001, the Northern Ireland Executive was to be re-established. However, due to defections within his own Ulster Unionist Party, First Minister David Trimble, had insufficient support within the Unionist bloc in the Assembly to be re-elected to his post. Ford and two of his five colleagues re-designated as Unionist, for just 22 minutes, in order to secure Trimble's position, and thereby enabled the devolved institutions to operate for another year. However, Alliance failed to make any political gains from their move, and the UUP and Sinn Féin failed to reach agreement on the decommissioning issue, ensuring that the institutions collapsed again in October 2002.

In the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections of 2003, Ford's seat in the Assembly was perceived to be under severe threat from Sinn Féin's Martin Meehan, with many commentators expecting him to lose it. However, Ford's expertise in nuts and bolts electioneering stood him in good stead. Although Alliance's vote almost halved, Ford's own vote in South Antrim increased from 8.6% to 9.1%. Meehan's vote increased dramatically, from 7.3% to 11.5%, and he started the election count ahead. However Ford had much greater transfer appeal and finished 180 votes ahead of Meehan at the end of a dramatic three-way fight for the last two seats, with the SDLP's Thomas Burns just 14 votes ahead of Ford. Despite the dramatic fall in vote, Alliance, almost miraculously, held on to its six seats in the Assembly, which remained suspended.^[1]

In 2004, Ford made good his leadership election pledge to work with other parties, as Alliance joined with the Workers' Party, Northern Ireland Conservatives and elements of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition to support Independent candidate John Gilliland^[2] in the European elections, achieving the best result for the centre ground for 25 years.

Ford's greatest triumph came in the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election, when the party achieved its highest vote share since Alderdice's departure and picked up a seat in what was an otherwise poor election for the moderates. Despite media predictions once again of his demise, Ford himself was elected third in South Antrim, with over 13% of the poll. In the 2011 Assembly elections, the Alliance Party managed to increase their vote by 50% gaining an extra seat in East Belfast and surpassing the Ulster Unionist Party in Belfast.

Northern Ireland Justice Minister[link]

On 12 April 2010, Ford was chosen by the Assembly to become Northern Ireland's first Justice Minister in 38 years. Ford was supported in the Assembly by the DUP, Sinn Féin, the Alliance Party, the Green Party and the Progressive Unionist Party. Separate candidates for the position were put forward by both the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP, being Danny Kennedy and Alban McGuinness respectively.

Personal life[link]

David Ford is married to Anne, has four grown-up children and lives in rural County Antrim. He is an elder in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

See also[link]

• Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site
• Alliance Party official site