First Fight. Then Fiddle.

"Carry hate" (9) . This line ending from Gwendolyn Brooks' "First Fight. Then Fiddle" leaves a strong impression on the reader. The next line follows it with, "In front of you and harmony behind." (10) This statement spreading within two lines encompasses the very essence of this poem. In this poem, the author uses many images of war and peace to convey a certain message. Within the poem, he uses music as the main symbol for peace. As a general trend the poem constantly reiterates how the music and peace must come after the fighting, after the peace has been brought about by war. The way he presents it though shows war as a necessary evil, that war is for the sake of peace.

Throughout the poem, Brooks goes to some lengths to separate war and peace. In choosing the form of an Italian Sonnet, he was able to separate war and peace with the volta at line 9. Interestingly he talks of peace first, symbolizing it with a violin. After this he follows in the sestet with imagery of bloody war and fighting. The effect is that it shows a wish for peace, a longing for it, but a grim determination that the fighting must come first. In a way, he is idolizing peace as a time in which you may leisurely play your violin, and have fun, while making war into the force which allows you to have peace in the first place, regardless of how awful war is.

Having exemplified war and peace in such terms, we can see quite a bit of what the overall meaning behind the poem is. Brooks reiterates that fighting must and will come before peace, and this gives the sense that peace and order are things that must be actively maintained. "For having first to civilize a space Wherein to play your violin with grace."(13-14) As these lines suggest, order and civilization are historically built on war, and it is one of the few ways to maintain it. As the poem says, "Carry hate In front of you and harmony behind."(9-10)