Carpe Diem!

With Dead Poets Society still ringing in our ears, my Lit & Lang 11 class embarked on two poems taking different views of the "seize the day" theme.

One is a classic (and, as I learned from a podcast a few months ago, it is often misunderstood) and the other is excellent, though it will probably never reach the status of the former poem.

That former poem is Robert Frost's classic "The Road Not Taken." The latter poem is John Updike's brilliant "Ex-Basketball Player."

I wanted us to read them not just to discuss their themes but to also look at some of the finer techniques in each poem. Yet, I didn't want to leave students feeling like we've dissected something. I think that's one reason kids hate poetry. That and they often feel like they have to search for some deeper (often hidden) meaning.

That's why I like what Mr. Keating did in Dead Poets Society when he had his students stand atop his desk to view things differently. He tells them to not just consider what the author thinks but to consider what they think.

Above all, I wanted to strive to get their thoughts about one of the poems - and its theme - down on paper. And if I was really lucky, I'd be able to get them to write about one of the personal experiences that related to one of the poems.

First we read Frost's poem --

Robert Frost

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.

Then we examined the poem stanza by stanza. While we did that, I divided the board in half. One side for the literal meaning and one for the figurative.

Students did very well with this. They nailed the literal meaning of the poem and the traditional figurative meaning of the poem.

We talked about how Mr. Keating in DPS might use this to challenge his students.

Then I shared how I've heard this read at numerous graduations as encouragement to take the road less traveled.

Though, as Dr. Clark Closser, at Missouri State notes, the roads are really about the same. So is the message really to strike out and do something totally original? Dr. Closser thinks it's something quite different.

I shared his example - only tailoring it to my life - how on my 30th birthday Lon and Sara threw me a birthday party.

Later in the evening we walked over to a local bar that had a band playing. When we walked in, I happened to notice this girl that I had had a serious crush on for a number of years - none other than Kristie.

I was so nervous that Lon, Tuffer, and I had to take a walk to give me a pep talk!

Somehow I managed to confess to Sara that if I could have only one thing for my birthday it would be to dance with Kristie.

Well, Sara worked her magic and set it up.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Now, as Dr. Closser points out, the meaning of "The Road Not Taken" is not to strike out and do something totally original. People have misread the poem for years.

The focus should not be on the line "I took the road less traveled." Instead, it should be on the lines "I shall be telling this with a sigh" and "And that has made all the difference." Dr. Closser claims the point is that the speaker of the poem realizes that he faced a choice. He ponders which one to make and ultimately chooses a road (and remember they are about equally worn). That's not the key point. The key point is that he knows he wishes he could split in two and travel both, but he can't. He ponders the thought of, well maybe I'll come back and take the other path. But we rarely ever do that - or ever get the opportunity (unless you're Francis Macomber in Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber").

For the speaker, what has made all the difference was the decision. For that decision, like our decision to go to the Spot after my birthday party or my decision to tell Sara that I wished I could dance with Kristie or the decision by Lon and Sara to even throw me a birthday party, those were the decisions that made all the difference.

The students related to this. We talked about small decisions we made that impacted us - maybe even saving our lives or altering the courses of our lives. Those decisions, in other words (namely, in Frost's words), that "made all the difference."

I was so happy with this that we could have just stopped there.

But I wanted students to take another look at the theme of 'carpe diem.'

So I had them read "Ex-Basketball Player."

Ex-Basketball Player

Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks,
At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth’s Garage
Is on the corner facing west, and there,
Most days, you’ll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.

Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps --
Five on a side, the old bubble-head style,
Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.
One’s nostrils are two S’s, and his eyes
An E and O. And one is squat, without
A head at all -- more of a football type.

Once Flick played for the high-school team, the Wizards.
He was good: in fact, the best. In ‘46
He bucketed three hundred ninety points,
A county record still. The ball loved Flick.
I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty
In one home game. His hands were like wild birds.

He never learned a trade, he just sells gas.
Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while,
As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,
But most of us remember anyway.
his hands are fine and nervous on the lug wrench.
It makes no difference to the lug wrench, though.

Off work, he hangs around Mae’s Luncheonette,
Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball,
Sips lemon cokes, and smokes those thin cigars;
Flick seldom speaks to Mae, just sits and nods
Beyond her face towards bright applauding tiers
Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.


Now this poem has a different slant on the 'seize the day.' The subject of this poem, Flick Webb, didn't take the road less traveled and it too has made all the difference. Just in a negative fashion.

Prior, to reading this, I had the students write down the worst thing they could imagine doing or having to do three years from now. Of course, the wise alecs wrote about death or prison, but the clear majority came up with the worst thing that could happen to them three years down the road was still living at home with Mom and Dad!

That was exactly what I figured. And that was great 'in' to this poem because poor Flick Webb - while probably not still living with Mom and Dad - has managed - despite all of his former basketball talent - to wind up two full blocks from the high school pumping gas and changing tires. And - in one of the most tragic scenes that I can think of - in fact, it's on par with the conclusion to Updike's classic short story "A&P" - Flick just ends up wasting his time playing pinball and instead of stands full of cheering fans - he imagines the candy in the aisles around him applauding as those fans once did years ago.

Finally, I asked students to do one of two writing assignments -

One - to think of how these poems address the theme of 'carpe diem' and to write about which one they think is more successful in motivating them to 'seize the day.'

Two - write about a time when you faced a choice and took 'the road less traveled' or a time when you made a seemingly small decision but down the road it turned out to be a pivotal moment in your life, one that 'has made all the difference.'

Now, that was a fun class. Not a bad way to spend 80 minutes or so.