Robert Frost, for one, was an American POET who is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets in the English language. He was born in San Francisco in 1874 and is best known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his use of American colloquial speech. His work often employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. He won four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic works.