The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

This is easily one of the most popular and most misunderstood poems of all time. I remember my favorite teacher in middle school, who I am still in contact with, had a poster with the final three lines of this poem on it. I thought it was so cheesy that I deliberately chose a desk to sit at where I would not have to see the poster during class. If you couldn't tell by my previous posts, I despise sentimentality. Makes me want to hurl.

Anyway, on with the mocking!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

You know that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you read familiar lines of poetry? If you've got it right now, kill it. Statistically speaking, this ain't the line you know. The line you know is all the way down in the fourth stanza. If this poem were a person, you'd be standing there saying to it, "you're a strong, independent poem," and it would be all like, "you don't know me. You don't know my life!"

The Children's Hour

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

     What utter sentimental crap.
     My mother used to read this poem to me when I was a child, and I've always hated it, so I figure this is a good one to start this new venture on. Presumably, she thought that, because I was a child, I would appreciate a poem about children. I didn't. (I wanted her to flip the pages of her slim volume of poetry a few to the right and read "The Raven," which has a beautiful musical quality to it even if you don't get the allusions or understand quite what is happening.)
     The entirety of the poem is quoted here, in purple italics. Let us begin.

Between the dark and the daylight,
     When the light is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations
     That is known as the Children's Hour.

     Oh God, you just know this is going to be awful. "THIS IS A POEM. IT HAS METER AND RHYME LIKE A NURSERY RHYME BECAUSE IT'S ABOUT CHILDREN, SEE?" Not to mention, for a first stanza that rhyme is just damned lazy. Throughout this whole poem, Longfellow doesn't really seem to care about when he uses lazy rhymes or perfect rhymes, like he never even wanted to write this poem in the first place. Well, you know what, Henry? We all wish you hadn't.