Trust, Passion and Love

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy and Spike find they are pulled together by love. They don’t want to love each other at first, but they can’t contain their feelings and are drawn to each other. Buffy, of course, fights her feelings every step of the way. She resists her own feelings of love in this little bit of dialogue:

BUFFY: I'm not saying I don't have feelings for you. I do. But it's not love. I could never trust you enough for it to become that.

SPIKE: Trust is for old marrieds, Buffy. Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes.

BUFFY: Until there's nothing left. That kind of love doesn't last.

And in fiction that kind of love ends tragically. Perhaps it is also true in life.

Unforgettable poetry

I am reading an old Harper's Magazine from 1999. There's an article in it where five well-established American poets talk about poetry.

According to these poets, (Donald Hall, Cynthia Huntington, Paul Muldoon, Heather McHugh and Charles Simic) a poem is considered great if, once you are finished reading it, you want to go back and read it again.

A good poem should be disappointing, or deflect one's expectations, says Huntington.

"If a poem has no obvious destination, there's a chance that we'll all be setting off on an interesting ride," said Muldoon.

"I think one of poetry's functions is not to give us what we want," said McHugh.

To me then, poetry is like Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There are so many unexpected plot twists in that show, and characters you least expect die.

The trick is to be able to think differently than your audience. Become a mind reader and anticipate their thoughts. It's tough.