The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Wallace Stevens, “The Emperor of Ice Cream” is an open text poem. The author wrote this poem in such a way that there are many interpretations. To me the poem is comparing life and death to an ice cream. The emperor of ice cream is death. In the first stanza the author mentions kids and little girls and childhood crushes. These are all thing that happen when one is alive. In the second stanza however the author mentions that a girl is cold and her face is covered. This is an allusion to death. When one is dead they are covered and their feet get cold. In the same way that ice cream is cold but can melt and disappear we are solid but with time we also disappear. The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream is death.