LOVE POEM 1

To continue with poetry and because Valentine's Day is nearly here, this time I'm starting our Love Poetry Week.

As Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate,  said:

“Poetry is what love speaks in. Longing, desire, delirium, fulfilment, fidelity, betrayal, absence, estrangement, regret, loss, despair, remembrance – every aspect of love has been celebrated or mourned, praised and preserved in poetry.

“As readers, we are most likely to turn to poetry when we are in love, or troubled by love, or wish to mark its anniversaries, or its private significances. And many of our greatest poets have produced their finest work when writing love poems.” (source: The Telegraph)

I'll be posting a love poem a day. As always, the poems I'll post are among my favourites. I hope you like them too. Here's the first, a poem I particularly identify with:

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

It promises light

like the careful undressing of love.

Here.

It will blind you with tears

like a lover.

It will make your reflection

a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

possessive and faithful

as we are,

for as long as we are.

Take it.

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,

if you like.

Lethal.

Its scent will cling to your fingers,

cling to your knife.

Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy (born 23 December 1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's poet laureate in May 2009. She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly bisexual person to hold the position, as well as the first laureate to be chosen in the 21st century.

Her poems address issues such as oppression, gender, and violence, in an accessible language that has made them popular in schools.