Keats knew immense suffering in his day-he lived through his generation’s pandemic and lost his mother and his brother to tuberculosis before succumbing himself at 25. Keats’s “ Ode on Melancholy” is an exquisite example. The most powerful love poems, I think, address the fact that we are here now and one day won’t be. Rita Dove’s “Flirtation” works a similar magic, reminding us that “My heart/is humming a tune/I haven’t heard in years!” The poem encourages us not to miss the world’s deliciousness: “Quiet’s cool flesh-/let’s sniff and eat it./There are ways/to make of the moment/a topiary/so the pleasure’s in/walking through.” Everything is suddenly technicolor: “There are days we live/as if death were nowhere/in the background from joy/to joy to joy, /from wing to wing,/from blossom to blossom to/impossible blossom” Li-Young Lee writes, capturing love’s fleeting jubilance. The best love poems enact the hyperaware state of being alive we feel when we’re in love. When a poem is flooded with too much emotion, it becomes sentimental, even cheesy but when a poem risks nothing, it leaves a reader cold. For one thing, it’s hard to strike the right tone. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to playĪs much as we may want-or need-to write a love poem, it’s often difficult to find a language that adequately expresses the way we feel.
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