The Road Not Taken; Robert Frost

During our Peer to Peer Hangout last week when my work was being shared, one member suggested I look at Robert Frost's Poem The Road Not Taken which I include below.

The Road Not Taken

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.

This poem really resonated with me, reminding me of ideas that I had already included in my introductory text. On researching a commentary about the poem I discovered that it can be read on two levels. It can be read as a commentary on life and decision making, but, in fact, it was written as a joke for Frost's friend, poet, walker and naturalist Edward Thomas. When they went walking together Frost found Thomas chronically indecisive about which path they should choose and in retrospect often regretted the choice they had made.  Robert MacFarlane describes Edward Thomas as a 'foot philosopher' MacFarlane, 2016, p238).  In the Old Ways MacFarlane describes Thomas as a confident, solitary walker and that his poems are 'thronged with ghosts, dark doubles and deep forests in whch paths peter out....' (MacFarlane, 2013, p25).  This fits well with the idea of my images teasing the viewer: paths appear to go through a hole, but the paper is flat, 2D; how faint can a path be and still be a path, when is a path not a path because it is an animal track.  It also fits with the idea of paths being a metaphor for life or for memory.

MacFarlane, R. (2016) Landmarks. London: Penguin

MacFarlane, R. (2013) The Old Ways. London: Penguin

Robinson, K. (2016)Robert Frost: "The Road Not Taken" [online] Available from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/44272#guide [Accessed 06.02.17]