The best Valentine’s day presents are always handmade (Just ask your mom, she still has that red construction paper heart with the doily glued to it that you made her in first grade). In honor of the holiday that we all love to love (and love to hate) I thought I’d provide a step by step guide on how to write your own, one-of-a-kind valentine for that special someone (or your favorite Lemuria bookseller).
1. Get some supplies.
Don’t be scared to branch out from the red paper, white lace theme. There’s nothing wrong with good, old lined paper. It might just bring back memories of illicit notes passed in high school.
A Perfect Heart
To make a perfect heart you take a sheet
of red construction paper of the type
that’s rough as a cat’s tongue, fold it once,
and crease it really hard, so it feels
as if your thumb might light up like a match,
then choose your scissors from the box. I like
those safety scissors with the sticky blades
and the rubber grips that pinch a little ski
as you snip along. They make you careful,
just as you should be, cutting out a heart
for someone you love. Don’t worry that your curve
won’t make a valentine; it will. Rely
on chewing on your lip and symmetry
to guide your hand along with special art.
And there it is at last: a heart, a heart!
-Ted Kooser, from Valentines
2. Don’t try to plan out what you are going to write. Follow where the poem leads you.
A little obscure? Think about it this way: If you are going to go for a walk, you know where you are starting, and at some point, you’ll need to return to where you began. But you don’t know what route you will take or what you will see along the way. Don’t be scared to make a wrong turn; you can always retrace your steps.
In TimeThe night the world was going to endwhen we heard those explosions not far awayand the loudspeakers telling usabout the vast fires on the backwaterconsuming undisclosed remnantsand warning us over and overto stay indoors and make no signalsyou stood at the open windowthe light of one candle back in the roomwe put on high boots to be readyfor wherever we might have to goand we got out the oysters and satat the small table feeding themto each other first with the forkthen from our mouths to each otheruntil there were none and we stood upand started to dance without musicslowly we danced around and aroundin circles and after a while we hummedwhen the world was about to endall those years all those nights ago-W.S. Merwin
3. It’s a love poem, don’t be scared to be sentimental.
Keep in mind, though, you want to be specific. Don’t say what everyone else says. Say something special about the person or how you feel. You love them more than Oreo cookies? Say that. But what is your favorite part about Oreo cookies? The cream or the cookie? Are the 2 of you an Oreo cookie? etc.
Love Song for Alex, 1979My monkey-wrench man is my sweet patootie;the lover of my life, my youth and age.My heart belongs to him and to him only;the children of my flesh are his and bear his rageNow grown to years advancing through the dozensthe honeyed kiss, the lips of wine and firefade blissfully into the distant years of yonderbut all my days of Happiness and wonderare cradled in his arms and eyes entire.They carry us under the waters of the worldout past the starposts of a distant planetAnd creeping through the seaweed of the oceanthey tangle us with ropes and yarn of memorieswhere we have been together, you and I.-Margaret Walker, from This is My Century
4. It doesn’t have to be happy. But if it is happy, that’s okay too.
Some of the best love poems are a little bit bitter, a little bit melancholy, a little bit sarcastic.
5. Not in love? Well, write a love poem about not being in love.
I feel horrible. She doesn’tlove me and I wander aroundthe house like a sewing machinethat’s just finished sewinga turd to a garbage can lid.-Richard Brautigan
We would love to read your poems, so feel free to post them on our blog or Facebook!
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