In the Clearing

Invited to recite "The Gift Outright" at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, Frost composed a new, prefatory poem[1] that became "For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration".

At the actual event Frost wasn't able to read the latter poem, but still recited the former from memory.

[2][3] After the Kennedy inauguration, Frost had "high hopes" of finishing the collection of poems he had been promising Holt for the past several years.

It had been Frost's misgivings about the quality of his later poetry that had prevented him from putting it into print much earlier.

[4] Published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in New York[5] on his 88th birthday, March 26, 1962,[6] ten months before his death, it was the last volume of his poetry published in his lifetime.