Preface

This anthology contains 40 poems from poets born after 1966 who discuss the subject of love in a non-conventional or non-mythological way. All of the poets are from the Western World, predominantly Britain and America, and no translated works have been included.

Contents

The Difficulty - Rae ArmantroutSyntheses of Love – PC BowmanHow to talk to a new lover about cerebral palsy – Eli ClareNightclub - Billy Collins Another Valentine-Wendy CopeMy Advice-Felix DennisName-Carol Ann DuffyValentine-Carol Ann DuffyModern Love – Douglas DunnLoves - Steven DunnWhy Things Burn – Daphne GottliebOn Making Love After Having Made Love – Robert J LevyTrue Love Michael LongleyTrue Love – Sharon OldsMountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem – Matthew OlzmannDerivatives-Michael Symmons Roberts Things That Could Happen – Jacob Sam-La RoseMuse-Jo ShapcottRachel Last Springtime – John SiddiqueYou are Jeff – Richard Siken

Poetry Anthology – Reading PoemsUID: 7683381Word Count: 4690/5000

Protean Love: A new anthology of contemporary love poems

Introduction

John Armstrong notes that ‘[l]ove is one of humanity's most persistent and most esteemed ideals’.1 Indeed, evidence of this is clear to see in a significant proportion of poetry, fiction and film, where this theme is explored. However, as this introduction will show, love is presented in an idyllic way that is bad for everyone but industries and capitalists. The two main ways this has occurred are historically, through translation and the reification of mythology, and also through commercialisation of love, through which the principles set up historically were pinned down to its marketable parts and then repeated until the idea of what love is became a concrete set of values. This anthology is a corrective, not just to other anthologies which propagate, unquestioned, this perception of love for the editor’s personal gains, but to the Western perception of love itself.

This anthology will deal with only the Western perception of love as different cultures often differ in outlook, and the nuances of certain words in one language can be lost, as we will see, in translation. For this reason, the anthology does not contain any translated works, and only showcases poets from Britain and the United States. Although it is true that these two countries are geographically very separate, and there are certain differences in their cultures, the two have a shared history and a common language. Consequently, both countries have easy and regular access to the other’s popular culture, and their perceptions on love are closely linked. In addition, these two nations are the intended audience for this anthology. As the purpose of the anthology is to alter the reader’s perceptions and expose how love is used against them, I wanted the poems to be written by poets who are exposed to a similar environment. One of the reasons I only chose poems written after 1970 was that it the year is close enough to the present to enable the audience to feel as though the poets are their contemporaries and have a similar culture and concerns as they do, rather than being estranged by them. The significance of this date will be discussed further on in the introduction.

So what is love, or at least, what is it in the Western, English-speaking world of today? This appears to be the one of the most common questions posed in poetry, fiction and film, suggesting that love cannot be defined in an all-encompassing manner. Love is like a red red rose. Love is a many-splendored thing. Love is blind. Love is all around us. None of these definitions come close to explaining what it is that differentiates love from all other things, and yet they are widely known and accepted phrases.

1 John Armstrong, Conditions of Love: the philosophy of intimacy (London: Penguin Books, 2003) p. 1.

One of the reasons for this is that the modern English word ‘love’ encompasses multiple meanings at once that do not always go hand in hand. Armstrong continues his argument by demonstrating that the Greek word amor, used by Ovid and Horace, meaning ‘romantic lust’ and the Latin word caritas, found in the Vulgate Bible, meaning unselfish goodwill towards another person, are both translated as ‘love’, despite these words having distinctly different meanings.2

In his poem ‘Loves’, Stephen Dunn highlights the variable and unclear definition of love.3 The speaker indiscriminately lists various things he ‘loves’, with trivial everyday things, ‘something to yell for’ or the cat bringing home a rat, alongside more personal things, such as his marriage, wife and daughter.4 The repetition of the word ‘love’, which occurs along with its derivatives almost 50 times within the poem, is thus devalued, demonstrating the problem with its casual use within conversation. Dunn also acknowledges the deceptive portrayal of love within literature and its appeal, when he notes that, ‘[w]hen students fall in love with me I want to tell them it won’t last/ There’s more pleasures in the text’ before revealing that he is, ‘withholding things, of course’, highlighting the text’s artificially crafted nature. The text is more appealing than the man, but at the same time the text is deliberately constructed and misleading. The last line of the poem, ‘I love how we go on’ is then left ambiguous. It could be referring literally, and trivially, to the length of the poem, or romantically, to the power of human endurance.5

Because the definition of love is so elusive, attempts to define it have been steeped in mythology. One of the most significant myths on love, which Armstrong notes as vital to the post-19 th century Western perception, comes from Aristophanes’ speech within Plato’s Symposium.6 Aristophanes details a creation myth, which tells of how humans originally had two faces, four arms, and four legs, and were extremely powerful, until they tried to conquer the Gods, causing Zeus split them in to two separate humans. The elusive definition of love is used as evidence for the myth, as it concludes by stating that humans now spend their days longing to find their matching ‘other halves’, which would lead to a mysterious feeling of wholeness and power upon their reuniting. Aristophanes notes that ‘[t]hese are they who continue together throughout life, though they could not even say what they would have of one another […] the soul of each is wishing for something that it cannot express’.7 Here, the united couple are unaware of the definition of their needs, because it goes beyond their own comprehension of what they know to be possible, and shows love as a disguised utopian wish or longing to be ‘whole’.

Over time, these mythical perceptions have been so embedded into our perception of ‘what love is’, that they have become the ideal, and remain relatively unquestioned. For instance, Aristophanes’

2 Armstrong, p. 11.3 Stephen Dunn, ‘Loves’, Poetry, 2 (1990) 339-350.4 S. Dunn, p. 340.5 S. Dunn, p. 350.6 Armstrong, p. 33.7 Plato, ‘Symposium’ in Plato in Twelve Volumes, trans. by Harold N. Fowler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), IX:192c.

creation myth is one of the founding principles on which the concept of soul mates is based, yet the conviction that soulmates exist is now seen as a legitimate belief. The first usage of the term (in the form of ‘soul-mates’) is attributed to Coleridge in 1822, and the first usage as one word, ‘soulmates’, in the early 20th century, suggesting that this belief is a relatively recent invention, and one that interestingly coincides with the rise of industrialism.8

It is not just echoes of mythology that have become integrated into the accepted norm in terms of our perception of love. The love heart symbol is one of the most synonymous icons for love in existence. Yet when the geometrical shape we now think of as a heart was used in medieval times, it was not an indication of love, and was often presented in the form of fig leaves. It allegedly became the symbol of the heart when Aristotle made an error in anatomical notes on the shape of the human heart. Although this mistake was later recognised, by then the heart symbol had become so ‘entrenched in the visual culture’ that it remains a symbol of the heart to this day.9

In contemporary Western popular culture, this ‘ideal’ has been packaged into a commercialised form which can be sold time and time again. The theme of love is so prevalent that an entire industry has been created around it. Romantic films often follow a plot concerning a single girl who ultimately finds love, whether she is looking for it or not. Flowers, in particular red roses, are seen as a powerful symbol of love, passion and romance. Every year, on the 14th February, an entire day is devoted to celebrating love and relationships, which is largely done through the purchasing of cards and gifts which supposedly symbolise one person’s love for their partners. Poetry anthologies are no exception to this trend, as demonstrated in Carol Ann Duffy’s Hand in Hand: An Anthology of Love Poems, which was released for Valentine’s Day, evidently intended to be purchased as a romantic gift.10

The mass media’s attempt to commercialise love has cemented and perpetuated its highly unrealistic representation. This can be seen through the shift in the definition of certain related words and genres. For instance, the genre of Romance and consequently ideas of what is ‘romantic’ and what isn’t have completely altered in recent times. Romance narrative used to be one where, according to the OED, ‘settings or the events depicted are remote from everyday life’.11 However, this ‘literary genre […] has now been largely eclipsed’ by one that ‘deals with love in a sentimental or idealized way’. 12

8 "soulmate, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2014. 9 Pierre Vinken, The Shape of the Heart: A Contribution to the Iconology of the Heart (New York: Elsevier, 1999) p. 38. 10 Hand in Hand: An Anthology of Love Poems, ed. Carol Ann Duffy (London: Picador, 2001).11 "romance, n. and adj." OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2014. Web. 29 December 2014.12 “romance, n. and adj.” OED Online.

In showing how love is used as a marketing tool to sentimentalise products in advertising, Matthew Olzmann’s ‘Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem’ exposes how industries can exploit their consumers to win their favour using a romantic perspective and a set of scenarios, ‘some reasons why our marriage might work […] because you yell at your keys when you lose them, and laugh, loudly, at your own jokes’, that we are trained to see as love and therefore sympathise with.13 It is written in a first person perspective seemingly addressing a second person, a lover. But the title suggests that this is not the case, and that the first person is in fact speaking to the audience, the consumers, trying to sell a product. The lover does not exist, but has been created to fit the stereotype of the practical yet illogical female partner, who can ‘hold a pistol’, but who writes ‘the contents of what [she] pack[s]’ ‘inside the boxes’. The narrator holds Mountain Dew as the main reason their ‘marriage might work’, as Olzmann uses irony to highlight the irrelevance of the product in relation to love and marriage.

This poem demonstrates how love is not exempt from the part of culture which Theodor Adorno speaks of in ‘Culture Industry Revisited’, when he remarks that, ‘[i]n so far as the culture industry arouses a feeling of well-being that the world is precisely in that order suggested by the culture industry, the substitute gratification which it prepares for human beings cheats them out of the same happiness which it deceitfully projects’.14 The prospect of falling in love is continually repeated in popular culture. It makes people think that everyone is or should be in love, and, by relating products to love and sentimental values, it can convince consumers that to buy these objects is to be in love, and consequently to be happy, and to fit in with the rest of society. As a by-product of this system, those who are not in love or do not receive fulfilment from their items in the way they had expected are left with a feeling of alienation from what they perceive to be the rest of society. This also emphasises how the culture industry can reinforce and invent what we define as love, before using this to manipulate consumers for financial gain.

Disparately, despite the inevitable breakdown of the type of romanticised love which culture repeats, the concept of an idyllic, fairy-tale ‘happily ever after’ is often portrayed alongside it. In Love, Actually, a film with a title suggesting it will expose the ‘truth’ about love, and one which has been voted the most popular British romantic film, the unhappy endings are subdued and overshadowed by the happy endings, as montages of different couples fill the screen and the last line boasts that ‘love actually is all around us’.15 In addition, the film upholds heteronormative values by only depicting straight relationships, and also does not include any romantic storylines for the older, retirement age characters. The only noticeably disabled person in the film is not the giver or recipient of love, but instead becomes a barrier to it when his sister attempts to form a relationship. Here the perception is regurgitated that love is reserved for the young, able-bodied, and the heterosexual. The heteronormative values displayed here are shown to be the result of a modern reimagining of love, as Aristophanes’ myth included three types of human; one which split to

13 Matthew Olzmann, ‘Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem’, Rattle 31:3 (2009) p. 460.14 Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Culture Industry Reconsidered’, New German Critique 6:3 (1975), 12-19, p. 18.15 Love Actually, Dir. R Curtis (London: Mirimax, 2004).Brigid Brown, ‘Love, Actually Tops Romantic Movie Poll’, BBC America (2013) [accessed online: http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2013/02/love-actually-tops-romantic-movie-poll/]

become two men, one which became two women, and one which became a woman and a man, but this aspect of the myth has been virtually erased from the modern Western cultural interpretation of love.

Though fiction, film and poetry are not expected to paint an accurate picture of life, this representation of love is so widespread and integrated into our culture, and the Romance genre in its modernised form so often uses settings familiar to everyday life (though more often in film than in poetry), that it is almost impossible for it not to be ingrained into the minds of people exposed to it. Consequently, the ideal is becoming represented as though it is the norm.

The affect this false ideal has on individuals does not end at manipulating them to buy certain products or excluding certain types of people. Mark Vernon claims that our perception that romance and intense feelings are the main part of love is a contributor to unhappy relationships, as these can only be sustained for a short period of time.16 This is because this kind of attachment is premised on the ‘meeting of strangers’.17 This is heightened by the original definition of the romance genre as transient and short-lived, and demonstrated by the idealisation of death within a young relationship in one of the most enduring plays, which is conjured to epitomise romance, Romeo and Juliet. Consequently, it is exclusive and alienating even to those who are within the regulations of its remit, due to its impermanence, and therefore does not have the ability to give anyone the chance of a lasting happiness.

Eli Clare’s ‘How to Talk to a New Lover about Cerebral Palsy’ explores what it means to be queer, disabled and in love;

Resist the urge to ignore your body. Tell her:

They taunted me retard, monkey,

defect. The words that sank into my body.

The rocks and fist left bruises.18

Here, Clare demonstrates that overcoming fears of judgment and choosing to be vulnerable and show physical and emotional weakness to those you love can make your relationship stronger.

16 Mark Vernon, Love (all that matters) (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2013) p. 55.17 Vernon, p. 55.18 Eli Clare, ‘How to Tell a New Lover about Cerebral Palsy’, Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out, ed. Kenny Fries (New York: Plume, 1997) p. 247.

Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Valentine’ exposes the arbitrary clichés involved in relationships by disavowing the traditional valentine’s gifts of ‘a red rose or a satin heart’ in favour of ‘an onion’.19 The narrator gives justifications for this gift, and states, ‘I am trying to be truthful’, implying that the other gifts do not properly reflect feelings of love. This poem has gained immense popularity since publication, appearing in several anthologies and being taught in the school curriculum. Alongside Duffy’s accessibility and fame, one of the reasons this poem stands out is because of its difference to other love poems. It is seen as the exception rather than the rule, an anomaly of onions in a world of symbolic love hearts and flowers. This is shown by the anthology of Scottish love poems edited by Antonia Fraser, which quotes one of the lines from ‘Valentine’ in its title, A Red Rose or a Satin Heart: An Anthology of Scottish Love Poems.20 Interestingly, it chooses to omit the word ‘not’ from the line. Rather than disavowing the conventions of romantic love in Western culture, it chooses to exploit the poem that it draws status from by reversing its meaning. Consequently, the anthology is turned into nothing more than one of the meaningless love symbols it describes in its title. The title appears to be making a statement against Duffy’s poem, yet the poem is included in a prominent place at the end of one of its sections. Although it can be argued that, once the anthology has been bought, the poem will be read and the context of the poem understood, by this point, if the reader is unfamiliar with this line at the time of purchase, the culture industry will have once again succeeded in deceitfully using artificial symbols of love as a sales mechanism.

I have included two poems by Carol Ann Duffy as, due to her current role as the Poet Laureate in Britain, she is one of the poets most in the public eye, and therefore her voice is more likely to affect change. But I have also included many lesser known poets, such as PC Bowman.

PC Bowman’s ‘Syntheses of Love’ looks at love from an emotional, literary and scientific, psychoanalytical perspective.21 Its three sections are subtitled under the three antitheses which Freud claims love to admit; hating, being loved and indifference. The structure varies from section to section. By exploring these three contrasting emotions which have been said to exist within love, Bowman is acknowledging that love is a complex subject that cannot be defined in one linear statement.

The differences between these three states are demonstrated by the structure of the poem, which only remains consistent through each section.

The section on hating consists of a regular enclosed rhyme of ABBA;

Few are worthy of it, and what it requires.

19 Carol Ann Duffy, ‘Valentine’, Mean Time (Anvil, 1993) p. 30.20 Antonia Fraser, A Red Rose or a Satin Heart: An Anthology of Scottish Love Poems (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2010).21 PC Bowman ‘Syntheses of Love’, Poetry, 4 (1978) 18-19.

Even love does not consume us quite so thoroughly:To feel the body's bristling spasm and taste, hourly,That metal on the tongue. If real it never tires,22

In the second half of this stanza, plosive sounds and short words are used break up the line, giving it a harsh tone indicative of the emotion it is describing. In addition, the way in which these sounds do not occur with as much frequency in the first two lines enacts the tumultuous nature of this emotion, which is also shown by the last line which carries over to the next stanza.

The second section of the poem, which focuses on ‘Being Loved’, discusses how the ‘empty’ visions and faceless women that literary figures Fitzgerald and Poe are in love with transform their behaviour. Though their love is not returned by these women, the narrator indicates that the words written as a result of their love caused other’s to love them through reading their works. This demonstrates how love is not always reciprocal, and also that it exists within language. Although the rhyming scheme is not consistent throughout, ABCD CBAD ABCD, words within the three stanzas rhyme or half rhyme with each other, connecting them, such as ‘sleeve’, ‘believe’ and ‘bereaved’, which reflects the intricacies of love.

The last section, on ‘Indifference’, is regular and measured, with a consistent rhyming scheme of ABCB and four stresses in each line, demonstrating the steady, unvarying emotion of indifference.

Douglas Dunn’s ‘Modern Love’ is effective in showing the fragile nature of love today, in contrast to the sentiment of ‘happily ever after’, as it depicts ‘rented silence’ and declares they have ‘not much to show for love’.23 The life described here is far from perfect, but at the same time they ‘have no hope of better/[h]appiness’. In the invasive, fast paced world of technology and modernity, there is little room for the couple to be truly alone together, and so they have learned to savour their time. Poems like these, which admit that love and relationships are less than perfect, yet still worthwhile, carry a more positive message than they appear, as they take away the pressure of couples believing that for their love to be real the relationship must be faultless.

Richard Siken’s ‘You are Jeff’ contextualises love within the unpredictable nature of life.24 In the first stanza, the poem offers a choice between two brothers, both named Jeff. The speaker tells a second person perspective that they will have to make a choice between the two Jeffs, but that it is in their interest to hear what the speaker has to say first. The following stanzas describe different scenarios where agency is lost, either through the narrator’s command, ‘don’t make a noise, don’t move’, or issues beyond control, ‘let’s say you have cancer’. The poem asks for a decision at the end regarding

22 Bowman, p. 18.23 Douglas Dunn, ‘Modern Love’, Selected Poems, 1964-83 (London: Faber & Faber, 1986) p. 64. 24 Richard Siken, ‘You are Jeff’, Crush (London: Yale University Press, 2005) p. 50.

which Jeff should be chosen, but all the different scenarios show that love is not a guarantee for eternal happiness, and that it does not exist in a vacuum, separate to other aspects of life. There is no right or wrong decision, because life is not a straight path and can irrevocably alter in an instant.

It is not just the linguistic content of the poems that question conventional attitudes to love. Jo Shapcott’s Muse is a sonnet, a form that has been dominated and shaped by men, with the main types of sonnet being named after Shakespeare and Petrarch.25 Shapcott evades the conventions that the form of the sonnet and the archetype of the Muse evoke within the literary canon. In discordance with tradition, ‘Muse’ is unrhymed, and the subject matter does not revolve around a male writer receiving inspiration from a beautiful, womanly form.

This anthology is arranged in alphabetical order of poets as opposed to categories which many other anthologies, including Allie Esiri’s The Love Book and Laura Barber’s Penguin’s Poems for Love have advocated.26 This is because, while this anthology is an attempt to steer away from one particular view of love, it is not an attempt to offer any definite definition of what alternative should take its place, but instead open it up.

While the section on being 'In and out of Love' in a contemporary poetry anthology which claims to have the widest readership, Staying Alive, is not explicitly split into categories, the poems are set out in a pattern, as though showing a universal cycle of love.27 The first few pages focus on new physical attraction and desire, in poems such as Tracy Ryan's Bite, ‘note how readily my veins leap up’.28 Then, after only a single poem on content married life, True Love by Sharon Olds, which is also included in this anthology, the focus moves to poems about adultery, such as Julia Copus’ ‘In Defence of Adultery’, and the impermanence of love (alongside an exploration of animal imagery).29 After this, the poems explore the end of a relationship and beyond, such as Eleanor Brown’s ‘Bitcherel’, and also anger.30 It ends with a sentimental poem about anticipating love, depicting the embarrassment of a lover who is being told by the speaker that he is in love with them, James Fenton’s ‘In Paris with you’.31 This shows how the anthology prescribes a specific cycle of love. The disproportion of poems relating to long lasting relationships compared to ones which detail fleeting desire or unhappy relationships within this cycle demonstrates the paradox of conventions which dictate that love is everlasting but also transient.

In addition to this unspoken categorisation of poems, some of the poems appear to have been chosen based on their ability to follow on from others, for example Yeats’ ‘When You Are Old’, a

25 Jo Shapcott, ‘Muse’, Phrase Book (Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 1992) p. 35.26 Allie Esiri (ed.), The Love Book (London: Square Peg, 2014).Laura Barber (ed.), Penguin’s Poems for Love (London: Penguin, 2010).27 Nick Astley, Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books, 2002).28 Astley, p. 252.29 Astley, pp. 259, 261.30 Astley, p. 277.31 Astley, p. 294.

poem which tells a lover to ‘take down this book/[a]nd slowly read’, is directly followed by Kate Clanchy’s ‘Spell’, a poem which is evidently influenced by Yeats, in which a lover is told to ‘take down a book, turn to this verse/and read that I kneel there’.32 This makes his statement concerning how the poems in this section are a 'very personal choice' less convincing, as the structure of this section is extremely formulaic.

In addition, describes many of the poems as 'strongly physical', and indeed, poems such as Ryan’s ‘Bite’ are significantly interested in sexual desire and sex. Without the focus of such poems also being on love, it can be considered problematic to call them love poems.

After the first Summer of Love in 1967, the perception of love and relationships shifted. Sex outside of marriage was no longer stigmatized, leading to less restrictions being imposed on poets, as it became publically acceptable to discuss extramarital relations. However, as this movement was seen as extreme, and only a specific group of people were involved, the effects of the Summer of Love were not seen as an integrated part of Western culture until the 1970s. This is why I chose this specific year as the cut off point for poems in this anthology.

However, having said this, it is important to establish that love and sexual desire are two very distinct concepts. Robert Brown notes that the distinction between sexual activity and love is ‘between intense, limited, brief and reiterated acts on the one hand, and milder, broader, longer-lived forms of relationship on the other’.33 Of course, desire is often present alongside love, but if a poem only signifies desire, then only the intense, transient nature of the relationship is highlighted. As noted earlier, these qualities are the same as the ones displayed by art which sticks to the conventional and romanticised version of love, which is unstable and problematic.

As I have mentioned, a few poems, such as Olds’ ‘True Love’ and Shapcott’s Muse, have been included within anthologies on love previously. However, they are often surrounded poems which stick to the harmful conventions of love. Although this does make their message stand out in the context of the collection, it also makes these poems an anomaly, as though they are included only in an attempt to provide a balance to the perception of love. By bringing them together, their originality can stand out, but not as an irregularity.

Sharon Olds’ ‘True Love’ explores love and sexual desire in a moment beyond initial infatuation.34 The narrator is overwhelmed by her marriage and the opportunities her children have. It is idealistic, exploring the possibility of an enduring romanticisation of a partner within an established loving relationship.

32 Astley, pp. 290-291.33 Robert Brown, Analysing Love. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) p. 24.34 Sharon Olds ‘True Love’, Strike Sparks: Selected Poems 1980-2002 (New York: Borzoi Books, 2004) p. 89.

The fact that these poems exist but have not been allowed, until now, to let their message reign through in unison, shows us that this harmful view of love is pervasive but not indestructible.

Although by no means do I expect this anthology to alter the perception of love in Britain and America overnight, by bringing these poems to the forefront of popular culture, I hope that this anthology will kick-start the realisation that love does not need to be a strict formula used to control or exclude, but a concept with endless possibilities.

Bibliography

"romance, n. and adj." OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2014. Web. 29 December 2014

"soulmate, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2014

Adorno, Theodor W. ‘Culture Industry Reconsidered’, New German Critique 6:3 (1975), 12-19

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Acknowledgments

Rae Armantrout

‘The Difficulty ‘ Poetry 1 (2015).

PC Bowman

‘Syntheses of Love’ Poetry, 4 (1978).

Eli Clare‘How to Talk to a New Lover about Cerebral Palsy’, Fries, Kenny (ed.) Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out (Plume, 1997).

Billy Collins ‘Nightclub’, Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Picador, 2013).

Wendy Cope

‘Another Valentine’ Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems, 1979-2006 (Faber & Faber, 2008).

Felix Dennis

‘My Advice’ Homeless in my Heart (Ebury Press, 2008).

Carol Ann Duffy ‘Name’, Rapture (Picador, 2006).‘Valentine’, Mean Time (Anvil, 1992).

Douglas Dunn

‘Modern Love’ Selected Poems, 1964-83 (Faber & Faber, 1986).

Steven Dunn‘Loves’, Poetry 4 (1990).

Daphne Gottlieb

‘Why Things Burn’, 15 Ways to Stay Alive (Manic D, 2011).

Robert J Levy‘On Making Love After Having Made Love’, Poetry 4 (1990).

Michael Longley

‘True Love’, Collected Poems (Jonathan Cape, 2007).

Sharon Olds‘True Love’, Strike Sparks: Selected Poems 1980-2002 (Borzoi Books, 2004).

Matthew Olzmann‘Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem’, Rattle 31 (2009).

Michael Symmons Roberts ‘Derivatives’, Drysalter (Cape Poetry, 2013).

Jacob Sam-La Rose‘Things That Could Happen’,

A Storm Between Fingers (Flipped Eye, 2007).

Jo Shapcott

‘Muse’, Phrase Book (Oxford Paperbacks, 1992).

John Siddique

‘Rachel Last Springtime’, Full Blood (Salt, 2011).

Richard Siken

‘You are Jeff’, Crush (Yale University Press, 2005).