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 passage from “The Road Not Taken” is one of the most powerful and memorable things Robert Frost ever wrote.  It deals with the choices one makes. The speaker has a choice to make and he went with the choice that not many others have made. It could relate to almost any situation in which a choice must be made. I like how he wrote the “I shall be telling this with a sigh” line and followed with the caesura after “and I”. It is as if he’s truly emotionally attached to the line, as anyone should be when they read/perform this poem.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

To be honest, I didn’t really understand this poem so I researched it a bit online and was educated. At the time its writing, scientists were debating whether the world would end in fire or ice: Would the Earth burn from the inside out or would it be overtaken by a devastating Ice Age? At first, the speaker says that he/she would side with the people who believe that fire will destroy the world. He goes on to say that “for destruction ice is also great”.  So, the speaker comes around and equates ice with fire in destructive power. This poem also could be related to a relationship.  If you don’t take it slow and go too fast it could burn away.  However, if you take it too slow and the relationship freezes, you can get stuck as ‘just friends’.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

Robert Frost apparently feels the same way I do about free verse, it has no head or tail, as my dad would say about a completely useless movie plot. The net is probably the most important feature of a tennis court. It is what makes tennis a sport that requires skill; it separates the men from the boys. It takes skill to consistently place the ball in the court whilst keeping the ball over the net. The same could be said about writing hit poetry while following poetry ‘rules’.