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!"

Opportunity

by Edward Rowland Sill


     Before I get started here, I just want to state that I actually quite like this poem. It will not always be the case, as with "The Children's Hour," that works I make fun of are works I dislike. Heck, Shakespeare will probably end up on here one day (cuz fuck Romeo and Juliet).

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: --

     We're off to a good start here! The man doesn't even know if this actually happened, or if he dreamed it. Either we've got some opium use going on, or Sill's got some majorly realistic dreams. Either way, this line is pure filler. It doesn't matter one bit if the events of the poem are supposed to have happened in real life or in the author's head. It's just a goddamned poem, we all know it's not really "real." You've only got three fucking stanzas here! If you must preface your poem with this kind of shit, pick which one you want the reader to temporarily believe, then write a better opening line that establishes that premise. Or, better yet, just get on with it!