Poet of the Week

[crazy]

The only poem I know/ read by Frost - The Road Not Taken had this one in our 10th syllabus


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
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
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.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

[pavalamani pragasam]

A sad philosophical understone is ever present!

[anbu_kathir]

dinning into our unprepared hearts the REALITY & INEVITABILITY of death!

Not by Frost, but by another famous poet, Alexander Pope -
-----------------------------------------------------
The Dying Christian To His Soul

Vital spark of heav'nly flame,
Quit, oh, quit, this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,
Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

Hark! they whisper; Angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away.
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my Soul! can this be Death?

The world recedes; it disappears;
Heav'n opens on my eyes; my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy Victory?
O Death! where is thy Sting?
_____________________________

Love and Light.

[Shakthiprabha.]

The only poem I know/ read by Frost - The Road Not Taken had this one in our 10th syllabus


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
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
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.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We had it in our school syllabus too.
This poem reminds me of the movie

"MR.DESTINY"

[P_R]

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
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
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.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

crazy, this poem again has more than one version to it.
One the straightforward one which we get taught in schools about the ode to choice, the limits of foresight and the celebration of daring. All quite well.

But the poem has a certain naughty ring to it. Man's capacity for justifying his actions. Look at the line in bold above. Seems to indicate that the paths were not very different after all. Did it really make a difference ? Perhaps not. "All the difference" may just come from the way the narrator is trying to recollect his life and choices.

The poem can also be read as the dismissal of regret, not through contentment or inspirational daring, but rather through human capacity for building convenient memories.

[podalangai]

I have always liked Nothing gold can stay. Thanks for posting it, Prabhu Ram.

Here's another of Frost's poems.

A Patch of Old Snow

There's a patch of old snow in a corner
That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if
Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I've forgotten --
If I ever read it.

Prabhu Ram's reading of "The road not taken" could apply equally well to this poem.

This poem more or less captures much of the essence of Frost's poetical techniques, I think. One of the things I like about Frost's poetry is the "snapshot" quality of his poems - which, in some ways, gives them a quality akin to the best Sangam poems. Many of his poems take one scene, and use imagery principally to describe the details of that scene in a beautiful, but naturalistic (i.e., not romanticised) way - unlike poets like Shelley and even Wordsworth, but like the Sangam poets. Yet he manages to use these details to craft implicit metaphors that conceal shades and levels of meaning, almost a sort of "ullurai uvamam". There're none of the complex similies and metaphors that're the standard tools of English poetry. The scene itself is the metaphor, as it was in Sangam poetry, particularly akam poetry, that used ''ullurai uvamam''.

This is the most "sangam"-like of his poems, so one sees it most clearly here. There are elements of this in all his poems, but here are other similarities too. The narrator is intimately connected with the action being described - he is a key actor, not a disconnected observer as the narrator of "Solitary Reaper" or "Ode to a Skylark". And the poem deal with emotions, feelings and thoughts created in a particular moment - while the passage of time and the past itself may be spoken of or alluded to, the poem itself is clearly set in a single instant.

[pavalamani pragasam]

Absolutely right!

[P_R]

Ok....who's next ?
Any suggestions podalangai, SP, Mrs.PP ?

[pavalamani pragasam]

The modern poets often elude my comprehension & hence appreciation! Can anyone make T.S.Eliot make dearer to me? I am still at a loss to understand why my cantab PG HOD was agog about him!

[P_R]

If someone volunteers to write about Eliot - we can freeze on him.