Discussions: What's Your Favourite Love Poem?

Hello, everyone! How have you been? A took a small break from blogging since I was traveling back to my hometown for the summer. Nevertheless, I don't want to miss another discussion post. The truth is that the topic I have been preparing is completely different than this one. However, I have decided to push it until the following week (it's going to be a fun one, I promise).

My plans changed because today is the birthday of Pablo Neruda, the famous Chilean poet. I have always possessed a soft spot for love poetry and Pablo Neruda's work is the most extraordinary example of the genre. I still remember the first time I read "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair" back when I was still a university student. The experience was intense and even now, I can't really say that I have read finest love poems.

Therefore, today's discussion is going to be about our favourite love poems, in honour of the great Pablo Neruda.

Why do we need poetry to express love, anyway?

Poetry collections by Pablo Neruda

What is love? This is probably the world's oldest question with no definitive answer. You can take a look at the psychological effects, the chemical reactions in the brain, and you still have an unclear image of what it is all about. If you are interested in reading more about our body's reaction to love, you can read this easy-to-read scientific article. No matter the physical effects of this feeling, every person experiences love in a different way. On top of that, the expression of love also varies among people. 

This is where poetry becomes essential. Imagine this: your heart burns with love and you are alone in your room. You are too shy to communicate your feelings to your special someone, what can you do? You take a sheet of paper and a pen (yes, I believe that poetry should still be written by hand). You write a word and then another. Before you know it, you have filled the page with your feelings. Will you ever give this writing to the person that inspired you? Most probably not, even though it's the most romantic thing you can do. As the editor of this Observer's article writes: 

When you give someone a love poem, you are telling them, “I love you so much, I have placed myself in the company of generations of poets and wordsmiths. I have created words out of what I feel for you in my heart.”

But why poetry? The answer to why we need poetry has many answers. It is a well-known fact that poetry teaches us empathy and lets us get in touch with something inner deep in our hearts. When you are feeling troubled, you can find comfort in poetry. For many centuries, poets have been trying to express every feeling, both known and unknown to humans. By recognizing your thoughts in someone else's work, you realize that you are not alone (this is a great article on this). Love makes you feel detached from your everyday life, often leading to vast loneliness. Therefore, poetry is the perfect expression for this feeling. 

How many love poems are there in the world? The answer is probably some millions. So, the endeavour to pick just a handful of poems is daunting. This collection from the Poetry Foundation is great to get you started on love poems of many different types. However, in this post, I have chosen some of the love poems that are closer to my heart.

Pablo Neruda - Your Laughter

Take the bread from me, if you want

take the air from me, but

do not take from me your laughter

Do not take away the rose,

the lanceflower that you pluck,

the water that suddenly

bursts forth in your joy,

the sudden wave

of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back

with eyes tired

at times from having seen

the unchanging earth,

but when your laughter enters

it rises to the sky seeking me

and it opens for me all

the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest

hour your laughter

opens, and if suddenly

you see my blood staining

the stones of the street,

laugh, because your laughter

will be for my hands

like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,

your laughter must raise

its foamy cascade,

and in the spring, love,

I want your laughter like

the flower I was waiting for,

the blue flower, the rose

of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,

at the day, at the moon,

laugh at the twisted

streets of the island,

laugh at this clumsy

boy who loves you,

but when I open

my eyes and close them,

when my steps go,

when my steps return,

deny me bread, air,

light, spring,

but never your laughter

for I would die.

I had great difficulty choosing just one poem by Pablo Neruda. I have chosen "Your Laughter" because it is an excellent example of the poet's work and one of the best to get you interested in discovering more. If you know Spanish, then I recommend that you read it in its original language as well.

Odysseus Elytis - The Monogram

This is how I speak of you and me
Because I love you and in love I know
To enter like a Full Moon
From everywhere, for your small foot in the vast sheets
To pluck jasmine petals – and I have the power
As you are asleep, to blow to take you
Through glimmering passages and hidden archways of the sea
Hypnotized trees with spiders that shine silver.

Waves know you from hear-say
How you caress, how you kiss
How you say ‘what’ and ‘eh’ under your breath
All around the neck, the bay
It’s always us the light and the shade.

Always you the little star and always I the dark vessel
Always you the harbour and I the lantern on the right side
The moistened wharf and the shine on the oars
High at the house with the vine arbour
The tied roses, the water that cools
Always you the stone statue and always I the shade that grows

The ajar shutter you, the wind that opens it I.
Because I love you and I love you.
Always you the coin and always I the worship that cashes it:

So the night, so the bluster in the wind
So the drop in the air, so the silence
Around (is) the sea the despotic
Arch of the sky with stars
So your faintest breath

That I no more have anything else
Between the four walls, the ceiling, the floor
To call of you and be beaten by my own voice
To smell of you and cause people’s anger
Because whatever is untried and brought from elsewhere
People cannot bear and it is soon, can you hear me?
It is still soon in this world, my love,

To speak of you and me.

Being Greek, I grew up with a lot of Greek poets. Even though you might not know it, Greece had a generation of great poets. Odysseus Elytis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1979 "for his poetry, which, against the background of Greek tradition, depicts with sensuous strength and intellectual clear-sightedness modern man's struggle for freedom and creativeness". His whole body of work is just like Greece, full of the sun, the sea, and intense feelings. The Monogram, in particular, is a devastating work. I have only included one part of it and you can read the whole poem here.

Federico Garcia Lorca - Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint

Never let me lose the marvel

of your statue-like eyes, or the accent

the solitary rose of your breath

places on my cheek at night.

I am afraid of being, on this shore,

a branchless trunk, and what I most regret

is having no flower, pulp, or clay

for the worm of my despair.

If you are my hidden treasure,

if you are my cross, my dampened pain,

if I am a dog, and you alone my master,

never let me lose what I have gained,

and adorn the branches of your river

with leaves of my estranged Autumn.

Federico Garcia Lorca's poetry mesmerizes me. This particular poem is about the fear you have that your love might end. It is a plead for love and affection that cannot leave your heart unmoved.

Leonard Cohen - A Thousand Kisses Deep

I loved you when you opened

Like a lily to the heat.

I´m just another snowman

Standing in the rain and sleet,

Who loved you with his frozen love

His second-hand physique -

With all he is, and all he was

A thousand kisses deep.

I don't remember if I've mentioned it before, but I love Leonard Cohen. His music, his poetry, and even his fiction. His work merges love, life and death, and religion. A Thousand Kisses Deep is one of my most favourite poems written by him. I have only included a small part, but you can read the whole poem here.

Honourable Mentions

I could go on and on about love poems. However, the post has already gotten quite lengthy, so I'm just going to include some links to some other poems I really love:

• Sylvia Plath - Mad Girl's Love Song
• Lisa Olstein - Dear One Absent This Long While
• Maya Angelou - When You Come
• Ella Wheeler Willcox - I Love You
• E. E. Cummings - [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

These were some of my favourite love poems. What are your favourite ones?