Category: poetry

Here’s another one that’s not about the poet’s girlfriend at all; rather, it’s a commentary on the folly of hyperbolic poetic comparison. And yet! It makes me swoon.

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Sonnet 130
by William Shakespeare

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

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And if THAT didn’t make you swoon, listen to Alan Rickman read it:

That background picture is amazing, isn’t it?

“One Art,” by Elizabeth Bishop

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This one was suggested by my friend Ursula on my last post as another example of a love poem that isn’t revealed to be a love poem until the end. I really like it!

One thing I love about Elizabeth Bishop is that her poems often rhyme. I don’t at all require poetry to rhyme, as I’m sure you can tell from my previous selections, but I do really enjoy it when it’s there.

Here’s one that isn’t a love poem at all. But it’s about love, and while it’s sort of gratuitously, melodramatically negative and cynical in the best Byron style, I think it captures something essential to the experience–that hatred and resentment you can only feel for someone you’ve been (or are) in a relationship with.

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto IV, verse CXXV.
by George Gordon, Lord Byron

Few–none–find what they love or could have loved,
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
Necessity of loving, have removed
Antipathies–but to recur, ere long,
Envenom’d with irrevocable wrong.

Could Have
by Wisława Szymborska
(translated from the Polish by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh)

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. The left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny.

You were in luck–there was a forest.
You were in luck–there were no trees.
You were in luck–a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
a jamb, a turn, a quarter inch, an instant.
You were in luck–just then a straw went floating by.

As a result, because, although, despite.
What would have happened if a hand, a foot,
within an inch, a hairsbreadth from
an unfortunate coincidence.

So you’re here? Still dizzy from another dodge, close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn’t be more shocked or speechless.
Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.

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This is a type of love poem I adore for reasons I don’t totally understand–the love poem that you don’t realize is a love poem at all until the end. Do you know any like that?

I didn’t do this on purpose, but here’s another one that’s more about the poet and his poetry than it is about his girlfriend. Why are there so many of these? Or do I just collect those without realizing it because I’m a writer? I still love it, regardless.

While digging through my copy of Sound and Sense for this one, I came across this gem: “Accurate determination of tone, therefore, is extremely important, whether in the reading of poetry or the interpretation of a woman’s ‘No.'” Wow.

“Mary Hynes (After the Irish of Raftery)” by Padraic Fallon.

Here’s one that, for me, conveys a deep sense of intimacy and affection. Do you think that has anything to do with it being written by a woman, or is that a coincidence?

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“Madonna of the Evening Flowers” by Amy Lowell.

April is poetry month! In honor of that I’m going to be sharing a poem about love every day through the month. Except for yesterday, because I forgot. (Most of them will be love poems, but not all.)

I want to hear what you think of them–whether you like them, whether you think they capture part of the experience of love. And please, comment or email me (rose@roselerner.com) with your own favorite love poems, because I’m not sure I’ve got thirty! Poems not by white men especially sought, because that’s mostly what I’ve got.

I’ll start off with this amazing poem my friend Sonia shared last Valentine’s Day.

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“I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone” by Richard Brautigan.

Hurrah for love! Here are two poems by Emily Dickinson about love. I know from experience that Valentine’s Day can be a bummer if you’re not with someone, so the first one is about break-ups:

341.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes–
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs–
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round–
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought–
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone–

This is the Hour of Lead–
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow–
First–Chill–then Stupor–then the letting go–

And here’s a more cheerful one, small and simple and surprisingly sexy.

55.

By Chivalries as tiny,
A Blossom, or a Book,
The seeds of smiles are planted–
Which blossom in the dark.

And now for something completely different: apparently In for a Penny is shipping from Amazon already! Several people e-mailed or called me yesterday to tell me their copies had arrived!

EEEE!

And now a comic: Kate Beaton’s Susan B. Anthony for kids.

What’s a poem that you think really captures something (happy or painful or anything else) about the experience of being in love?