About 1020 words

In these days just before Valentine’s Day, it seems as if every shop window, radio and TV commercial has turned the volume up on love. “Don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget,” whether the one you love is spouse, partner, grandchild, parent or pet, you must tell the one you love — by way of cards and gifts — that you are in love!”

How did February 14th become the most romantic day in our calendar?  According to The Whole Earth Holiday Book by Linda Polan and Aileen Cantwell:

1) The Romans believed that since birds chose their mates around February 14, human lovers should be honored on that date, too. 2) Emperor Claudius believed that married men were less likely to join his army and so during his rule, he jailed a man named Valentine for marrying people. 3) Also during Claudius’ reign, another man named Valentine was jailed.  He fell in love with his jailer’s daughter and gained acclaim for curing her blindness.  Infuriated, Claudius ordered this Valentine beheaded, and it is believed that Valentine wrote a love letter to the jailer’s daughter the morning of his execution, February 14.

Whether Valentine’s Day commemorates pairing, the miracles love performs, or the communication of feelings, you may want to use the date to immortalize your love by capturing it in words.  If you feel blocked about writing about love when so many have penned memorable words on the subject, a look at the work of two famous poets may help you. The renowned Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was inexhaustible when it came to writing love poems. “Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring,” he writes in “Love.”  “My voice searched the wind to touch her ear,” is from “Saddest Poem.”  And so is “…Far away, someone sings.  Far away. / My soul is lost without her.”

 All of his love poems are quite beautiful, but one offers the rest of us a strategy we can both admire and utilize.  In “I Name You Queen,” Neruda addresses his love saying there are lovelier, there are taller, and there are purer than she.  He says no one else sees her crown and the carpet of gold at her feet when she walks by.  But when he sees her, he is stirred and the world is filled with hymns and bells.  He ends his poem with three short lines:  “Only you and I, / only you and I my love, / Listen to it.”  Read through the poem a couple of times (by clicking on the link above) to get the feel of how the poet uses the metaphor of the queen to show the woman he loves how much he loves her.

Sit anywhere where you can recollect in tranquility.  If you have printed a copy of Neruda’s “The Queen,” savor his poem one more time and start a piece of writing based on his strategy.  To come up with metaphorical possibilities that you can use in a poem or an essay, put the real name of your love in the center of a blank piece of paper and circle it.  Think of some possibilities to re-name your love, starting with tangible things; write them down on the page, circle them and draw a line from them to the circled name of the one you love.  Next think of roles to assign your love and do the same thing.  Then think of concepts to call your love and do the same thing. Be sure to give yourself time to think of as many possibilities as you can:  book with many pages, vacation, magician, maitre de, silk scarf, Cracker Jacks, artist’s palette, ocean crossing, take off, car chase, gardener….

Next jot down details that occur to you about each thing, role, and concept you’ve written down and circled with a line connecting the circle to the name of your love. A gardener, for instance, tends plants, knows exactly what their soil requirements are, appreciates their colors and textures, etc. After you have added details to the roles, concepts and things you have circled on the page, one name will strike you as especially right for your love.

Now, use Neruda’s strategy as a template.  First, write down what you name your love and list as many things as you can that no one else notices that confirm your belief that your love is the thing, role or concept you have chosen.  Whether you are writing prose or a poem, you can extend the metaphor you are making by branching into anecdotes about the person.  If I call my love a gardener, I may talk about how no one else sees his eyes taking in the blue of Himalayan poppies or the way he stakes the tallest stalks so they do not bend from the weight of the day’s growth.  I can go on to list more attributes I see or I can tell stories about him that connect to noticing details of flowers and taking care that plants do not suffer damage.

After you have written the first part as far as you can take it, begin a paragraph or stanza with the word “and” and follow the word with the sensations that happen inside you when you are near your love or thinking about your love.  Remember, what happens inside you is a consequence of what you’ve called your love.  Neruda chose to name his love the queen because she set off bells in him like the bells of churches would be set off when a queen visited.  If my love is named gardener, perhaps inside me a night blooming lily opens. But I can’t stop at one event that goes on inside of me. I must tell my love more about what nobody sees going on inside me when he is near.  I must keep my thoughts in character with the name I’ve given my love:  not only does the night lily open inside me when I am in the presence of my love, but moonshine lights my way home, and I think of the way time prunes the weakest branches allowing nutrients to foster thicker, stronger growth.   When I awake near my love, all the cells in my body go tropic.  I move from the dark to the light.

After you have described what happens inside you, end your poem with something you can share with your love.  Neruda asks his love to listen with him.  What do you want to tell your love to share with you? If I have chosen to call my love a gardener, perhaps I want to implore him to go out with me in noonday sun and see the tips of manzanita leaves pointing directly up, protecting the rest of the leaves’ surfaces from dangerous heat: “Only you and I my love, only you and I, know how to protect the heart of our love from all that attempts to bake it dry.”

Put the words “After Neruda” under your title to show the debt you owe this brilliant poet.  Invoking his name and thinking as he did will open you up to writing about love and its effects on you.

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If metaphor helps us speak our love, anaphora (see the 1/23/03 instructional exercise “Carrying Back to Carry Forward”) helps us organize our observational power.  Love is focused, continuing, high quality attention.  In the 18th century, the poet Christopher Smart wrote with anaphora to praise his Cat Jeoffry.

In Jubilate Agno, Smart writes:

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him. For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way. For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness. For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer. For he rolls upon prank to work it in. For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself. For this he performs in ten degrees. For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean. For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there. For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended. For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood. For fifthly he washes himself. For sixthly he rolls upon wash. For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat. For eighthly he rubs himself against a post. For ninthly he looks up for his instructions. For tenthly he goes in quest of food.

You can take a lesson from Smart and begin a poem or essay by announcing that you will be considering a loved one.  If, as in Smart’s example, using a numbering system helps you, go ahead and use one. When I wrote from this exercise, someone I love entered my poem in a mysterious way.  While I considered my grandson, I began considering my son, who was not present. While the poem start that resulted is not exactly a Valentine’s Day kind of love poem, I want to share it with you. When we write from an outside occasion like doing a February love poem exercise, we may find our poem has its own occasion and we must honor that.  Ultimately, all of poetry is about love’s existence in our world:

For I Will Consider My Grandson Toby

After Christopher Smart

For he is the first of a new generation descended through me. For he has the sociability of his mother and the physical strength of his father. For dark skinned and haired, at first glance you would not see how he resembles his blue-eyed uncle, but for his big feet and big hands. For his uncle had big feet and big hands, For this is so and I remember my son’s spirit. And this is also so: my son’s fiancé, who restructures her life now without him, came to visit Toby after six months away. Firstly, Toby crawled to her circled arms and sat inside them as if they were a boat on his ocean. Secondly, Toby turned to look in her eyes and put his mouth over the end of her nose. Thirdly, Toby did this again and fourthly again and fifthly once more. Sixthly, we watched him take her inside of himself gobbling all that he could, the playful desire for her that I saw in my son. And, seventhly, oh holy number, with tears in my eyes, I have come to the page to consider Toby, My daughter’s nine-month-old son, spirit of good news And eighthly, how he is almost walking; And ninthly how nothing makes him smile more than rising to his feet. For tenthly for he is majestic on his own two feet, King of this ever-expanding world.

This Valentine’s Day month, let Neruda’s and Smart’s strategies inform your writing and help you discover what you may not otherwise have found words to say.