L ov e P oem

‘Every poem is a love poem.’ — Helen Mort

The truth comes to us late one afternoon: a poem must love the thing it lives within. The more we use the word, the more it means – a poem must hold the thing, but tenderly, not afraid, not holding off, and not too soon – this truth comes to us late one afternoon as we’re sipping tea, and talking about poems, or about love, the language they’re written in. The more we use that word, the more it seems (no matter if we can know what we mean) because the thing within is far more than any truth that might come on an afternoon and if a poem must live within that thing then it must love the whims and edges of the thing, beyond even what those words could mean. Out there are all the things we want to mean but do not say because we cannot know what truths might come to us one afternoon when talking about tea, or sipping love, or writing poems even, using words that mean more than all the things they mean.

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