Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

I'm moving away from love poems this week (or am I?) to talk about a more apocalyptic topic and to reference my favorite poet of all time, Robert Frost. Frost is known primarily for his nature poetry (two of his most famous are Two Roads Diverged in a Wood and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening), but I'm providing something a little different.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

For a poet so known for his contemplation on the beauty of nature, this poem seems more than a little dark. I haven't come across a lot of poetry that talks about the apocalypse, which makes this all the more interesting for me.

Of course, Frost isn't just referring to one type of apocalypse here. I don't think this poem is exclusively about the literal end of the Earth--it's also about a much more person apocalypse. On one level, you could interpret the poem as anti-war: the fire is the war and death around us, which will destroy us if we don't find a way to make peace. It could also be a humanitarian poem, with the ice representing apathy towards suffering, which will eventually destroy us all.

But I think the most profound level of this poem is its meaning on a personal level. The poem functions here as a meditation on what destroys us: our lust, our desire, our greed and our hatred, our cruelty, our selfishness. It is just as frightening and dangerous to be cold as it is to be hot.

However you read this poem, there's something chilling and unsettling going on here. Robert Frost has found that part of human nature we most fear, latched onto it, and set it all before us in poetic form.

Everyone knows Frost is a poet. One of my English professors would probably tell me to call him a Poet, but that's a story for another time. Today I've also discovered what I think is a brilliant poem from someone who does not consider him or herself a poet at all--or does (s)he? Read Steve Site's poem and decide for yourself.

What Love is Like by Piet Hein

What Love is Like

Love is like
a pineapple,
sweet and
undefinable.

-Piet Hein

Can one simple little analogy really be considered a poem? I think so. Still, to write a poem of this length takes extreme attention to detail and an excellent sense of how words work. I don't know much about Piet Hein besides that he was Danish and lives A Long Time Ago, meaning before I was born (he died in 1966). Actually, I kind of like discovering a beautiful poem, looking at the author, and thinking, "who?" That's when a poem can really live and breathe on its own. It has no author we know, so the poem has a unique, separate identity. I like that

About this poem itself: ask someone you know who you're absolutely sure is in love to define it. People tend to give pretty ambiguous answers. "Well, it's not easy..." "You'll know it when you see it." "It took me a while to find it..." No one seems able to just tell you "love is always exactly like this and here is a list I made out with diagrams to make it clear for you." You can't do that. Fortunately, we've all loved someone or been loved at some point in our life, whether it be by a lover, a family member, or a friend. Thank God for that, because without firsthand experience we'd never get it right.

Like short poems? Try your hand at writing some of your own! See this blog post for further info on how you can try your hand at writing short poetry in the form of a haiku.

It's Raining in Love by Richard Brautigan

For the first time, I'm featuring a male poet! Yes, men can write poetry too.

It's Raining in Love

I don't know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
a lot.

It makes me nervous.
I don't say the right things
or perhaps I start
to examine,
evaluate,
compute
what I am saying.

If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
and she says, "I don't know,"
I start thinking: Does she really like me?

In other words
I get a little creepy.

A friend of mine once said,
"It's twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them."

I think he's right and besides,
it's raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That's all taken care of.

BUT

if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
"Do you think it's going to rain?"
and I say, "It beats me,"
and she says, "Oh,"
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
instead of me.

-Richard Brautigan

Now, when you think about this, the last few lines of this poem aren't very nice. It isn't considerate to be so gleeful when you find out someone else is in that early, miserable stage of head-over-heels in love because of you, is it? Ideally, a person would feel guilty. The truth is, we rarely do. Love can be such a miserable, frustrating thing that the evil little voice in the back of our heads--the one that wants to drink milk out of the carton or offend everyone at the family reunion out of spite--rejoices to see someone else going through the pain and uncertainty we've all suffered.

For another quirky look at the eccentricities of love (this one's extremely relevant to our pop culture era), check out Refrigerator Poetry.