Reading Response 7: Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice"

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173527

One of my favorite poems of all time is “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost. The poem is deceptively simple; a mere handful of lines. But I think it says something important about the state of our world with more eloquence than other poems try for in thousands of line.

Frost is famous for the accessibility of his works, and “Fire and Ice” is no different. The rhyme scheme is simple (ABAABCBCB), and the poem drives forward at a fast but comprehensible pace. In terms of meaning/theme, readers know from the first read-through that the poem is about the two greatest destructive forces the world has ever known: desire and hatred. But which will cause the world’s eventual destruction? Frost’s narrator seems to believe that desire— whether for love, money, power, etc. is the more likely candidate. However, he also feels that humanity’s capacity for hatred is such that we are just about as likely to kill one another out of sheer loathing as anything else. And after watching Hitler, Stalin and Osama Bin Laden, who can disagree? Annihilation is inevitable, and that sense of glorious ruin which floods through us as we choose our own destruction is bitter, breathless and yet somehow sweet.