Flonk

In The Woods

Last year some teenagers broke into Robert Frost’s house, had a party, and trashed the place. As part of their punishment, they are being forced to take poetry classes, starting with “The Road Not Taken” which is, as far as I’m concerned, Geneva Convention-scale poetic torture.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” [Middlebury College professor Jay Parini] thundered, reciting the opening line of the first poem, which he called symbolic of the need to make choices in life.

“This is where Frost is relevant. This is the irony of this whole thing. You come to a path in the woods where you can say, `Shall I go to this party and get drunk out of my mind?”’ he said. “Everything in life is choices.”

Even the setting had parallels, he said: “Believe me, if you’re a teenager, you’re always in the damned woods. Literally, you’re in the woods — probably too much you’re in the woods. And metaphorically you’re in the woods, in your life. Look at you here, in court diversion! If that isn’t ‘in the woods,’ what the hell is `in the woods’? You’re in the woods!”