Love Poems for Valentine's Day

Need some poetic lines (or inspiration) for Valentine's Day?

Try some classic and contemporary love poems from Poets.org.

From "How Do I Love Thee?" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace...

to

"How to Love" by January Gill O�Neil

After stepping into the world again,
there is that question of how to love,
how to bundle yourself against the frosted morning�
the crunch of icy grass underfoot, the scrape
of cold wipers along the windshield�
and convert time into distance...

A Broken Flower Love Poem by Daniela Cuellar

A Broken Flower

Don't look at it.

It's not what it appears.

It smiles. 

It laughs.

It is not real.

It's hurt.

Touch it, it'll break.

Look at it, it'll drown.

It'll cry until it hurts.

It's haunted.

The thoughts of you tear it apart.

Why can't it let go? 

What has it become?

It was once happy, now, just upset.

It was once laughing, now, cries until death.

Its heart was wide open, now, hard as a rock.

A smile.

It haunts it.

It tears it apart.

Leave.

It doesn't want you.

Why can't it let go?

A shadow.

Behind it.

Hurting.

So sore.

It will hide 'till forever.

Its want will not cease.

You will not find it.

It will not live in peace.

Yes, it will fall.

Fall as it please.

You will not catch it.

It will let go, as much as you call.

It will not answer, as much as you want.

It is done with you. 

Leave.

It will cry out the hurt.

Don't look at it.

Please.

It will let go.

It's not what it appears.

It is not the real "me".

Until someone comes back, like this it will be.

Touch it, it'll break.

Kiss it, it'll bleed.

It doesn't want to hurt you.

Please!

Leave it be!

It starts as a seed.

It blooms as a flower.

It'll grow and it'll grow.

Grow by the hour.

Please let it go.

Just let it hide.

Because after it blooms, it'll shrivel and die.

Some Anti-Love Poems for Valentine's Day

In case today is not the Valentine's Day of movies and songs, here are some "Anti-Love Poems" about breakups, heartache, and unrequited love. The Poetry Foundation describes these as more �Screw Cupid� than �Be Mine.�

A few samples:

�The Glass Essay� by Anne Carson

In the days and months after Law left
I felt as if the sky was torn off my life.

   

�The Flurry� by Sharon Olds

I mutter, �I feel like a killer.� �I�mthe killer��taking my wrist�he says,
holding it. 

�Cuckoldom� by B.J. Ward

if you look
for alimony,
it follows
acrimony

�Semele Recycled� by Carolyn Kizer

After you left me forever,

I was broken into pieces,

and all the pieces flung into the river.

�The Breather� by Billy Collins

All that sweetness, the love and desire�
it�s just been me dialing myself
then following the ringing to another room

�Time Does Not Bring Relief: You All Have Lied� by Edna St. Vincent Millay

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,�so with his memory they brim. 

�Sonnet [You jerk you didn�t call me up]� by Bernadette Mayer

I�m through with you bourgeois boys
All you ever do is go back to ancestral comforts

Poets Pick Their Favorite Love Poems

If you ask contemporary poets to pick their favorite love poems, you get ones that run from the passionate to the political.

For example, Kim Addonizio's selections include "Song of Songs, Canticle 4" and Yeats' �When You Are Old� which she confesses to first encountering "in the movie Peggy Sue Got Married, in the scene where the young wannabe Byron quotes it to Kathleen Turner�s character and then spoils the mood by quoting some of his own execrable verse. It�s a somewhat melancholy poem in the end, with its �how love fled,� but what stays in memory is the lovely assertion of a profound love that sees beyond the body."

Sharon Old has amongst her picks, �Passing Through� by Stanley Kunitz.

Joel Brouwer asks "How can anyone write a heartfelt love poem in this age of irony without seeming like a sap?" And his answer is �Windchime� by Tony Hoagland .