Valentine's Day Poetry

[reddish68]

I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day, but it put me in mind of this poem by ee cummings, which is probably my favorite poem ever, notwithstanding my strange HS Freshman obsession with The Hollow Men and later love of Auden (who knew he had his own society?), being the gay. This poem, though, just gets me (and I have to admit, yes, I was introduced to

Comments

[texaninla]

I recited "The Hollow Men" in 8th grade, at a Prose and Poetry contest for Speech and Drama. I got a medal. :)

[popebuck1]

I remember that e.e. cummings poem from Hannah and Her Sisters, where Michael Caine gives it to Barbara Hershey by way of confessing his love for her.

And I, too, went through a heavy T.S. Eliot phase in high school - didn't every one of us emo youth identify with Prufrock at one time or another?

As for the gay poets, I was deeply into Whitman for a while in college, and Ginsberg after that. And thanks to Four Weddings And A Funeral, I was welling up even seeing the link to "Stop all the clocks" on the Auden page.

[daewonblake]

Talking of Valentine’s Day and love songs, the poem that immediately comes to mind is 'The Love Song of J.Alfred.Prufrock'.
Inspite of the title, the poem is not a love poem at all. It is actually a poem about the absence of love. The main character, the all-important Prufrock, is the epitome of the modern man who is too afraid to live and wishes to be a pair of rugged claws scuttling across the floors of the silent seas. His self-questioning doubts are common to man from any era. Reading an intro to this poem on Shmoop, I thought if there is a lesson to learn about love it would be to grab the chance for love when you have it. Prufock’s procrastinations and constant worst-case scenario hesitations lead him sadly, to nowhere.