Robert Frost: One of My Favorite Poets

Frost is one of my favorite poets, mainly because of his humble, grounded perspective. Perhaps his most well-known poem is “The Road Not Taken.” I first encountered this poem through a speech by a man named Presley McCoy, who led the Danforth Foundation’s Professorship program when I received one. He had just transitioned to become the Director of this program from a regular professorship at Redlands University and used the poem to explain his reasoning for making the switch. He saw it as following the “road less taken,” and it had “made all the difference” for him. 

When I think about the poem and the idea of choosing a less traveled path in my own life, the major changes in my journey also took me from what was familiar to what was still unknown. I became a Christian as I was finishing high school. After a year of college in Washington, studying to be a coach, I transferred to Westmont College, a small non-accredited school in California, to study for Christian ministry. This choice, in Frost’s words, “made all the difference.” Not only did it guide me toward a life of Christian service, but it also eventually led me to decide to become a college professor. Both of these “less traveled” paths turned out to have made all the difference in my life.

Both paths I faced back then were appealing. I would have loved to be a coach. I had the chance to coach our college track team in my senior year after our regular coach died suddenly. I was also allowed to coach a high school basketball team for a year while in graduate school. Both of these “beaten” paths were very enjoyable and successful. Nonetheless, I must say that choosing the route I did, to become a college professor, “has made all the difference.” My 60-year life as a college professor has been and still is the most enriching and delightful life I could have ever imagined. As you can see, Frost’s poem is not about “The Road Not Taken,” but rather about having taken “the road less travelled.” And for me, this choice has made “all the difference.”