Books
OK, Valentine's Day is right around the corner, which means it's time to buy a card... and find a way to express how you really feel about your partner in that card. There's no time like the present to tell someone how much you care about them, but if you just can't find the right words to express how you feel, there's no better place to turn than poetry. These love poems make are perfect for Valentine's Day cards.
Sharing poetry on Valentine's Day is a time-honored tradition. After all, who knows love better than poets? What's most special to me is that moment in time in which you feel like you're literally inside a poem with someone else. When the words on the page connect you with another soul. Sharing a poem can feel like sharing your own tiny piece of the world.
Each one of these poems below catches the magic of love in its own unique way. From classic sonnets to contemporary free verse, the world of poetry has so much to offer, and there is certain to be a poem that exactly fits how you feel about your Valentine. Poetry is truly the gift that keeps on giving. (For free!)
So, as Shakespeare said, "If music be the food of love, play on." Here are 11 stunning love poems to write in your Valentine's Day card:
"Colors passing through us" by Margie Piercey
"Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet."
"Altruism" by Molly Peacock
"What if we got outside ourselves and there
really was an outside out there, not just
our insides turned inside out?"
"A Journey" by Nikki Giovanni
"It’s a journey . . . that I propose . . . I am not the guide . . . nor technical assistant . . . I will be your fellow passenger . . ."
"Imaginary Morning Glory" by C.D. Wright
"...If blue
were not blue how could love be love. But if the body
were made of rings. A loose halo would emerge
in the telluric light."
"Having a Coke with You" by Frank O'Hara
"partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary"
"To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet
"I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense."
"So Much Happiness" by Naomi Shihab Nye
"But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to."
"In Our Late Empire, Love" by Malachi Black
"drops from upper air,
like rain,
clinging brightly
to the fresh-cut hair
of children
and the infantry:"
Click here to read.
"Happenstance" by Rita Dove
"When you appeared it was as if
magnets cleared the air.
I had never seen that smile before
or your hair, flying silver."
"Touched By Dusk, We Know Better Ourselves" by Sasha Pimentel
"You map my cheeks in gelatinous dark, your torso
floating, a forgotten moon, and a violin
crosses the sheets while you kiss me your mouth
of castanets."
"The Wall Hanging I Never Noticed" by Dorothea Lasky
"Until I noticed you I could not help it
Until you made the red flowers alive again
Until the blue branches
The lemons you loved, but also the way you loved me, too"
