I Suck at Writing Love Poems

Nobody can stop you from freaking out, but that's not so bad. The corny as hell, awkward uncool stuff is quite often the best stuff in life. Being vulnerable and open is itself attractive, and slipping on a banana peel while doing it can be endearing. Often you're admired just for taking the chance.

Could you be focusing on the person you're crazy about so much you're too intimidated to say what you want to say? As if it's embarrassing if it's not perfect beyond perfect from the first word?

If so, remember that some poems that are very much about love don't start out that way, but move toward it over the course of the poem. So you don't have to get right into the smooshy stuff immediately. You can start where you're more comfortable -- set an ordinary scene, maybe pick a quite different emotional tone or energy level -- and then let your gooey heart reveal itself over the course of the poem. You can make the love a discovery or realization rather than something you're wading through and drowning in. I'm not saying it's "the" way, but it's "a" way, and might work for you.

Our love poem specialist around here, ajc, often posts in the critique section. Try doing a search on her poems. They're not always about the happy part of love, but quite a few are. Check the ones from spring of this year first.

I can only write them if the emotions are flowing deep. Otherwise, I am wasting my time. Good luck.

Then don't write love poems. As Blarg says, a love poem doesn't have to be about love. Some of the most beautiful American love poems were written by Edgar Allen Poe, not who you'd expect, and not because they are explicitly love poems, but because they handle his ineptitude to think any other way than fatalistic or chronically morbid -- but then applied to his emotion for his loved one... great stuff, even if we can blame him greatly for many terrible teenage angst poems (especially mine at that age )

If you are by nature a dark person, don't TRY to be anything else, embrace what you write, how you write, but target it at whomever the object of your affection is. The result will be honest if nothing else.

kborsden said:

If you are by nature a dark person, don't TRY to be anything else, embrace what you write, how you write, but target it at whomever the object of your affection is. The result will be honest if nothing else.

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I agree. This can provide a wonderful contrast that makes the love arrived at come across as more earned and honest, sometimes more vulnerable. Seeing love have to fight through thickets of emotional obstacles can make you cheer its eventual victories.