Friday, December 19, 2014

Love poems

We're deep into poetry.  My creative writing students have played with pantoums and rolled around in ovillenjos. We've explored ballads and free verse, sonnets and limericks. But the other day, we toyed around with love.  Our goal was to craft a love poem to someone or something.  Our inspiration came from these two pieces, which we used as muses for our own pieces on love.




Here is my little love poem:

Love
by J. Ward


It is joy and fear, swaddled
20.5 inches, 7 pounds, 8 ounces
that rips my heart open
and stitches it back together
stronger than ever.
Like nothing I have ever known,
raw and untamed.
When hurt was hurled in mocking tones
and labels like “bossy” pinned to your chest,
it came on fierce, defensive
and ready with a sweater sleeve
to dry your tears and
wipe away the sadness
that crashed over you.
My arms swing wide and tight,
armor to protect both our hearts,
which you melted
with the word
“mommy.”

5 comments:

Buffy Silverman said...

Great prompts, Jennifer! And I liked your love poem, especially "My arms swing wide and tight, armor to protect both our hearts." Thanks for sharing this, and happy poetry friday!

jason said...

Wonderful. Here's one of mine:

"And every single drop
Falls between the crack
Reminding me that
You ain’t coming back
Still, I raise my face
To the storm above
Hoping to get a taste
Of your ever drenching love"

Ruth said...

Ohhh, I love your poem! I can relate to it so well. There's nothing like that mother instinct that amazes you with its ferocity.

Linda B said...

I find that those feelings emerge even with my grandchildren, that fierce love. I've written love poems with students before too-always surprising how thoughtful and poignant they are.

Jennifer Ward said...

Buffy, Jason, Ruth, and Linda -
Thank you so much! The student initially were a bit hesitate to share theirs, but once one did, others joined in. We had odes to technology, free verse for food, and a very poignant piece about first love.

Related Posts: