The Everything Writing Poetry Book (22 page)

If you prefer, you can make slight variations to this scenario. Perhaps you guess that if your friend meets this special person, she will fall in love, too. In this case, you may choose to downplay your side of the dialogue, understating your beloved's wonderful qualities to protect your own interests. This and other variations will give your poem a greater sense of reality and create a more dramatic feel.

More on Monologue

Using monologue is another way to satisfy your reader's curiosity. The monologue, remember, can be written as if taking place within the mind of the speaker. Take another look at the information on the monologue in Chapter 7 and then write your own monologue. Consider the Robert Browning poem included in that section, “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister.” As Browning's monologue is addressed to Brother Lawrence, you should address your love interest, a close friend, or even yourself in your monologue. You could also use the “fly on the wall” technique and imagine watching your loved one complete a series of ordinary actions. Your job will then be to supply description and commentary that make his or her actions seem extraordinary to the reader.

Surprise and Context

Finally you might like to work with two ideas that poet Jeredith Merrin has named important elements of all love poetry:
surprise
and
context
. Using the method of surprise, you startle your reader with an observation, a rhyme, or a figure of speech. The surprise doesn't need to be earth shattering, but it should make your reader think of love in a new way. The idea of context will force you to make a connection between your feelings and the world around you. Perhaps some current event seen in a newspaper headline or a magazine article will remind you how your love fits into the big picture. Use this context to disclose your feelings in a new way.

Singing Praises

A poem that consists of a list of your beloved's best attributes, a discussion of those attributes with a friend, or a declaration of your love will set you within a time-honored tradition in English language poetry. Such poems tingle with newfound love or glow with love proven true over time. One of the most famous love poems in English expresses the latter feeling: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's “How Do I Love Thee?”

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death
.

For practice, you might scan this poem to see how Browning has used rhyme and meter to shape the speaker's feelings. Then try to rewrite the poem in your own words using the same structure. You could also try the reverse: Keep Barrett Browning's words but change the form of the poem. These exercises might give you ideas on how to portray love in a poem of your own.

Longing

Having strong feelings for someone while lacking an outlet to express that feeling can lead to many a sleepless night. You want to be with that person, you want that person to love you, but something is preventing the two of you from being together. This feeling can arise especially when you know that the object of your affection is strictly off limits. In any of these cases, you are experiencing longing—a popular poetic topic.

The Shadow

Jeredith Merrin names a third element of love poetry that partially speaks to this feeling of longing: the
shade
or the
shadow
. The shadow is, in essence, an obstacle between you and love. Unrequited love is one such obstacle. This shadow, when it appears, can take pure love and give it a completely different shape.

Other obstacles that can create the shadow in love poetry are physical distance, time, infidelity, differences in background or culture, and objecting parents. Many books, plays, and movies, as well as poems, have been written about the shadows that can fall upon love. You, too, can use this element in your poetry.

How to Demonstrate Longing

One option is to use a traditional theme, the
aubade
, or morning poem. The aubade often involves the separation of lovers at the coming of the day. This prospect of separation can create a sense of longing even while one is still in the presence of one's lover. The following is an example of such a poem—Jeff Knorr's “Not an Ordinary Wednesday”:

This morning my wife is up and showered
before me. She stands naked across the room
clinking past a watch, fountain pen, collecting
two earrings and inserting each with a tip of her head.
Her damp feet must be cold just beyond a shaft
of new light spreading like honey across the wood floor.
Wet hair touches her bony shoulders, then I follow
the line of her spine down, curving, and there
are drops of water on the back of her left thigh.
From the bed I try hard to bring her back.
What use is it to leave. The sun is not yet hot.
It'd be best to spend the next hours curled
tightly against each other like a peony
waiting to bloom in the afternoon heat.
And waking, we'll find each other's touch,
new, kissing until we are moving together
like wind entering trees, easing branches
west then east in sudden gusts.
I say, come on, climb in. To hell with work.
She laughs, dressed now, light in her face
as if she'd swallowed last night's melting stars.
One kiss, our hands together. They break.
As I stare into the space where we last touched,
a gentle thud, and the latch on the door clicks closed.
In the shaft of light, dust speckles the air, a long,
blonde hair spins in a small current and lands
on the foot of the bed. I will stay here listening
until I know she's as far away as the moon
.

Reprinted with the permission of the author
.

As an exercise, make a list of the things you are doing and thinking as you long for your beloved. If you are washing the dishes, describe the feeling of the water and the soap, the texture of the sponge and the towel, or the colors of the dishes. And if you are having a fantasy about this person, write it down in all its detail. Then write down a description of the obstacle keeping you apart. Once you have completed this preparation, write a poem about what you might do to break down that obstacle and how it would feel to find yourself with the person you love.

Rejection

Rejection is another common theme found in love poems. Whether you're being turned down by a new crush or by a longtime love, the effects of rejection can be devastating. Poets often choose to write about rejection, as it is a highly emotional topic that deserves plenty of description. You can write about this topic as a means of working through your pain or just to create art.

A Refection Poem

Jeredith Merrin uses a rejection poem, Thomas Wyatt's “They Flee from Me,” as an example of the shadow in love poetry. The first stanza in particular sets out a contrast, for the speaker, between how women once came to him and how they now avoid him:

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
    With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
    That now are wild and do not remember
    That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range
Busily seeking with a continual change
.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
    Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
    When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
    And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewith all sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
    But all is turned through my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
    And I have leave to go of her goodness,
    And she also to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved
.

Wyatt's poem is written in a verse form called
rime royal
, which includes a seven-line stanza and an ABABBCC rhyme scheme. His use of iambic pentameter is disguised by the modern spellings of many of the words here, some of which formerly had an unstressed
e
sound that filled the syllable count.

Writing about Refection

As you can see from Wyatt's poem, the speaker doesn't simply wallow in his feelings. He uses specific details to talk about the women, describing expressions, gestures, and clothing, and recounting pieces of dialogue. You, too, must make use of specific details as you write about rejection. This will make your experience more real to the reader.

Your first step should be to think about a rejection, either real or imagined. Write down the place where it occurred, the time of year and time of day, the significant pieces of dialogue exchanged, the clothing worn, and the gestures and expressions used. Try to write as objectively as you can, without attaching any of your own feelings to it. Your emotions will inevitably come through, but trying to write objectively helps you focus on description.

The next step is to carefully consider the items in your description and attach to them specific emotional responses you may have had. Did your loved one make a facial expression that made you dread the conversation you were about to have? Did she put her hand in yours as if to say, “I'm sorry”? Did you feel anger, disappointment, or relief?

Also, don't forget the elements of surprise, context, and shadow. In the central stanza of his poem, with its dramatic turn to a particular memory, Wyatt gives the reader a poignant jolt of surprise. Having the speaker relate the incidents in retrospect provides context. Wyatt's theme of lost love includes and embodies the shadows of infidelity and the desire for revenge. As you can see, rejection can be just one part of a poem centering on larger issues.

Finally, you might consider including a continuation for the speaker in your poem. In other words, the speaker may have suffered this rejection, but where does he go from here? The speaker in Wyatt's poem complains that his life has not been the same. Will your speaker leave it at that, will he move on and find strength somewhere else to continue, or will the speaker plot revenge? Take another look at the Thomas Hardy poem “Neutral Tones” in Chapter 5 (page 62) as an example of how these steps can be used.

Carpe Diem

Some love poems attempt to coax a reluctant person into a commitment, either emotional or physical. Central to these poems is an argument known as
carpe diem
, meaning “seize the day” in Latin. The logic behind this argument is that today you have a chance to act on your love; tomorrow might bring a separation, an illness, or death, which can cut your time short. The argument also establishes the context of the poem—the one-sided relationship between the speaker and the listener.

A Carpe Diem Poem

One of the most famous carpe diem poems is Andrew Marvell's “To His Coy Mistress.” He, like Shakespeare, begins by praising the lady's parts, saying that several hundred years should be devoted to a song about each. But with an ironic twist, he remarks that neither he nor his listener has enough time for such praises. He then uses some rather extreme imagery to support his argument, calling up dark, foreboding thoughts.