Page 1083 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

may discover a theme in a short story, but that theme will not

be directly stated.
3. Poetry is also a work of the imagination, and it is the most

concise of the verbal arts. Like a short story, it reveals its theme

indirectly. Sound as well as word meaning create the tone of a

poem: Poetry is meant to be read aloud. The voice in the poem

is not the author, but a created persona called the speaker.
When you read a poem, analyze the imagery and word choice

in each line to discover the writer’s theme.

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost
“The Road Not Taken” is one of the most

anthologized poems of American poet Robert

Frost. The nature imagery is characteristic of

Frost’s poetry.

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; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,