Thursday, December 2, 2010

Suicidal End of the World Poets

Not sure if poets and writers are more likely to put an early end to themselves than other occupations, but it would not surprise me.  Susan Beth Pfeffer in her young adult apocalyptic series, Life As We Knew It, has a character that, after rejecting Anne Sexton, names herself after Sylvia Plath.

This particularly appropriate peace comes from Sara Teasdale. She died 49 years after her birth.

There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

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