a.k.a. V.J.

I go down some unexpected YouTube rabbit holes. A couple weeks ago, I stumbled across a video of Robert Frost reading his poetry. I’ve never been drawn to poetry, but I watched the video and a funny thing happened: All those famous poems that I was supposed to read for high school English classes but didn’t (or in the case of “The Road Not Taken,” did so grudgingly) really came alive for me.

In the past, I have made a few sporadic attempts to appreciate poetry, but other than developing a fondness for “Ozymandias,” it never stuck. My enjoyment of the Frost poems made me decide to give it another go. His work seems like a natural starting place for me. I like to walk around in the woods, I’ve lived in New England, and I’m a WASP-y old man — Robert Frost should be my guy.

On a recent trip to the bookstore, I picked up a paperback collection of Frost’s work. I know that I could have found any number of volumes for free at the library or online, but I had this cockeyed romantic idea of carrying a dog-eared paperback around with me in a coat pocket, reading verse during stolen moments, and being inspired to scribble notes in the margins. There is absolutely zero chance any of that will happen, but it was a nice enough thought that I was willing to pay $8.99 to keep the possibility alive.

As of this writing, I’ve only skipped around in the book. It seems wrong to plow through a book of poetry from beginning to end. I want to consume this in sips rather than long gulps. After finishing, I’ll decide if I want to continue on to another poet or if I’m just too much of a prosaic soul to appreciate verse.