heartsThe 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 Time
The night the world was going to end
when we heard those explosions not far away
and the loudspeakers telling us
about the vast fires on the backwater
consuming undisclosed remnants
and warning us over and over
to stay indoors and make no signals
you stood at the open window
the light of one candle back in the room
we put on high boots to be ready
for wherever we might have to go
and we got out the oysters and sat
at the small table feeding them
to each other first with the fork
then from our mouths to each other
until there were none and we stood up
and started to dance without music
slowly we danced around and around
in circles and after a while we hummed
when the world was about to end
all 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, 1979
My 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 rage
Now grown to years advancing through the dozens
the honeyed kiss, the lips of wine and fire
fade blissfully into the distant years of yonder
but all my days of Happiness and wonder
are cradled in his arms and eyes entire.
They carry us under the waters of the world
out past the starposts of a distant planet
And creeping through the seaweed of the ocean
they tangle us with ropes and yarn of memories
where 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’t
love me and I wander around
the house like a sewing machine
that’s just finished sewing
a 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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