- Last seen on Jun 24 10:39 AM. Member since February 14, 2006.
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- June Astonomer at allpoetry
My heart is cold and bitter as discarded coffee grounds— full of black swamp sand my dragon nestles in. - May Zealot at allpoetry
She was no fair-haired beauty grown out of storybooks—no Andersen, no Grimm - April Heiress at allpoetry
Just because I don’t bite my fingernails or clip
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on The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, on September 11, 2006I never liked this poem in middle school and high school, where I had to read it and was told by my teachers that one shouldn't conform (all the while I was being made to conform). Then I got to college, was told to read it again and read it carefully. It's not about taking a road "less traveled." It's about regretting a decision you've made, one you can't go back on. The speaker "kept the first [road] for another day" and he's upset about it. Both roads are practically the same in the poem ("Though as for that the passing there/Had worn them really about the same,/And both that morning equally lay/In leaves no step had trodden black."), both leading to someplace, some destination or outcome. When the speaker identifies the path he took as "the one less traveled by" he probably means the outcome was one few find. Usually when you choose your path in life, you are happy with your choice. Unfortunately, he's not.
My interpretation, anyway.
-K -
on Her Kind by Anne Sexton, on September 11, 2006This was the poem that pulled me into the poetry of Anne Sexton, at the age of twenty. I don't know how I lived without her. She's such an inpsiration in my own writings. This piece is still a top favorite. It reminds me of that Meredith Brooks song, "Bitch." Every woman should embrace her unpredictable, scornful, misunderstood side.
-K -
on Sestina by Elizabeth Bishop, on September 11, 2006This poem gave me the itch years ago to try my own sestina. It still hasn't happened, but hopefully someday.
It's such a melancholy and lonely poem and reminds me of a rainy summer I spent with my grandparents as a kid. But it's excellently written.
-K
And did Frost tell you that his sigh was "[merely] of content"? People sigh for different reasons. Can the speaker really go back and take the first road that he "left for another day" if pretty much all readers of this poem interpret this choosing of roads as a life decision? Is the speaker content about losing the chance to travel the first road as well?
I don't think I'm "reading too much into" it. I'm just looking at it from a different perspective than you. I suppose his feelings over his choice are open. He never states whether he is or is not happy about the road he chose. He just states it "has made all the difference."
-K