The first poem I ever recited in public was Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” when I was in the sixth grade. Although I read the poem out loud every night for a week before the recitation--memorizing it even--I never fully understood what it meant. For me, poems were simply difficult SSAT reading passages. But few nights ago, when I accidentally stumbled across Frost’s poem while browsing through @TwaltWhitman tweets, something weird happened. The words actually spoke to me. I began to understand the importance of poetry and the various roles it plays in our lives.
Poetry has the power to manipulate the human mind. It can inspire confidence, numb pain, and even kill. According to the vlogbrothers’ video “The Road Less Travelled By,” Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” killed the Englishman Edward Thomas, who, by mistaking Frost’s advice, joined the British army at an old age and was shot in World War I. Centuries later, the same poem inspired a man named John to create a video that challenged the conventional interpretations of the poem, allowing him to conclude that being adventurous can sometimes be dangerous. Nothing in Frost’s poem changed since it was first published, yet it influenced Edward and John in such a different way. Words carry so many meanings, and so they invoke different feelings for every individual. For example, the line “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I—I took the one less travelled by—and that has made all the difference.” on itself carry so many different meanings that it gives the reader the freedom to wonder what Frost meant by “less travelled by,” or why he wrote the poem.
Poetry has the power to manipulate the human mind. It can inspire confidence, numb pain, and even kill. According to the vlogbrothers’ video “The Road Less Travelled By,” Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” killed the Englishman Edward Thomas, who, by mistaking Frost’s advice, joined the British army at an old age and was shot in World War I. Centuries later, the same poem inspired a man named John to create a video that challenged the conventional interpretations of the poem, allowing him to conclude that being adventurous can sometimes be dangerous. Nothing in Frost’s poem changed since it was first published, yet it influenced Edward and John in such a different way. Words carry so many meanings, and so they invoke different feelings for every individual. For example, the line “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I—I took the one less travelled by—and that has made all the difference.” on itself carry so many different meanings that it gives the reader the freedom to wonder what Frost meant by “less travelled by,” or why he wrote the poem.
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snQvRZ2vDHE
Link to poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/44272
I am so interested in Robert Frost's work and your story is so relatable. I really like how you showed some of his poems in your blog. It gives me something to look forward to.
ReplyDeletePoems are really difficult like that. Sometimes your understanding is totally different from what the author was thinking -- struggles of eighth grade English class
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