Don’t poems that involve passion, longing, or intimacy make you believe that love truly conquers all? I like to think so. There are many poets that are able to flawlessly narrate this feeling of eternal love, passion, yearning, and even heartbreak. Putting these powerful emotions into words moves us in ways that make us feel like we’ve been blessed with our crush’s presence or our heart has been shattered by them, even when we might’ve never been in love. Most of my favorite poems about love were written by poets who didn’t necessarily focus on writing love poems, and yet their literary works have stuck with me to this day and have continuously fed my hopeless romantic heart.
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
Everyone knows that Edgar Allan Poe was a notorious dark and gothic writer from the nineteenth century, but did you know that he also wrote poems? About love no less! “Annabel Lee” narrates the love between a couple who “loved with a love that was more than love,” so much so that the angels in Heaven were so jealous of them that they killed poor Annabel. That is, of course, what the speaker convinced themselves happened in order to cope with their separation from their lover. Though, even after Annabel Lee died, the speaker knew that their bond would never sever and, in the very last stanza, the speaker describes everything they see and experience, whether it be the moon, the stars, the sea, or the night, they all remind them of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
“And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.”
Edgar Allan Poe
After Years by Ted Kooser
This poem narrates how the speaker felt when they saw their lover (or ex-lover) after a long period of time. I’d rather say ex because the metaphors and images Kooser uses to describe said emotions were on a tightrope between heartbreak and yearning. What’s certain is that, based on the title alone, one can safely say that the narrator hasn’t seen their lover (or ex) in, well, years, and these emotions resurface based on the imagery. Though which one is it? Were the two people who caught a glance at each other once a couple, star-crossed lovers, or maybe had an unrequited love? The thing is that I don’t think that’s the message Kooser wanted to bring about with his bewildering poem. Perhaps what we should emphasize more should be the intense and almost ineffable feelings the speaker felt when they saw that person walking by one random day, and it’s astounding how someone can feel such complex emotions in such a short amount of time.
“At the other side of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times the size of our own sun exploded and vanished—”
Ted Kooser
Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath
The first stanza of this poem warns the reader that everything the speaker narrates about their love interest is all made up. Not only that, but Plath had already told us as readers that the speaker of that “song” is a delusional girl who’s lovesick over the romanticized version of someone. Why a different version of a person and not the individual themselves? Because of the same verse being repeated in most of the stanzas: “I think I made you up inside my head.” This ingenious repetition serves as a reminder that every single thought and image the speaker narrates about said unknown person is all a fantasy. Perhaps the speaker’s love interest isn’t actually made up but rather the person the speaker creates in their mind is; the person they want to fall in love with. Isn’t it peculiar how we can love a fake version of someone without realizing it, and then trying to convince ourselves that that version is the real one? The speaker, as she narrates her song, keeps reminding herself that it was all made up, but the urge to love is a need that most of us refuse to overlook despite the truth of reality.
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. I think I made you up inside my head.”
Sylvia Plath
