Frost contends that poetry is grief, politics is grievance. These categorical statements will be at the center of this essay, which is driven by the sense that the study of literature in recent decades has been overtaken by the political. What makes poetry about grief and politics about grievance? The latter has an aim on its audience, whether that audience be the general reader, the student, or the academic, while poetry “makes its way in tears.” In a moment of political turmoil like the present—so like the 1930s, which were formative years for Frost—the relationship between poetry and politics is fraught. The personal as political is the left’s battle cry, but for me poetry’s version of the personal draws on much deeper wells.