Today The Guardian started a thread — The Best Love Poems — based on the recommendations of famous authors such as Hilary Mantel and John Burnside.
For those of us who love to write poetry, but do so only in secret, feeling the medium is too far beyond our abilities, maybe these poems will inspire you to not only keep writing, but to share your work with those you love:
Love After Love by Derek Walcott (I found the poem on a very interesting site called PoemHunter.com, which includes love, death and I'm sorry poems among its various categories.)
Thank-You Note by Wisława Szymborska, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature
The Silent Lover by Sir Walter Raleigh
Air and Angels by John Dunne
For those of you seeking a more contemporary love poem scene, check out this list by Poets.org, including this one by San Francisco Bay Area poet Kim Addonizio:
My Heart
That Mississippi chicken shack.
That initial-scarred tabletop,
that tiny little dance floor to the left of the band.
That kiosk at the mall selling caramels and kitsch.
That tollbooth with its white-plastic-gloved worker
handing you your change.
That phone booth with the receiver ripped out.
That dressing room in the fetish boutique,
those curtains and mirrors.
That funhouse, that horror, that soundtrack of screams.
That putti-filled heaven raining gilt from the ceiling.
That haven for truckers, that bottomless cup.
That biome. That wilderness preserve.
That landing strip with no runway lights
where you are aiming your plane,
imagining a voice in the tower,
imagining a tower.
Happy (love poem) writing!
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