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The
Road Not Taken
Lloyd Newell
Shortly after
being named America's poet laureate, Robert Pinsky
launched a campaign to identify the nation's favorite poem. Thousands
of poetry lovers sent in nominations, and Robert Frost's reflective
poem "The Road Not Taken" emerged as the clear favorite. The well-known
lines speak of life's pivotal choices:
Two roads diverged in a
yellow wood,
And sorry I could not
travel both
And be one traveler, long
I stood
And looked down one as
far as I could.
Robert Frost, a teacher,
farmer, and poet, faced
such a crossroads early in his career. Largely ignored in American
literary circles, he sold his New Hampshire farm and moved to England
hoping to find a forum for his poetry. That choice "made all the
difference," and his career as a poet took off. He returned to New
England, and in the years that followed he received four Pulitzer
Prizes and lectured at the most distinguished universities, even though
he had no college degree. He became the voice of the common man, his
plain-spoken verses articulating our deepest hopes and everyday
experiences.
Don't we all stand at the
head of divergent
roads at various times in our lives? Consider your own personal
journey. How has your life been shaped by the roads you have taken?
"Way leads on to way," Frost reminds us, and we can't go back and start
again, but we can face each new crossroads with the benefit of past
experience and refined expectations. We can choose the path that will
take us where we want to go.
Two roads diverged in a
wood, and I —
I took the one less
traveled by,
And that has made all the
difference.1
1 The Poetry
of Robert Frost, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (1969), 105.
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Copyright
© 2006, Jace Carlton. All International Rights Reserved.
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