(20) LOVE POETRY

 

may i feel said he

(i’ll squeal said she

just once said he)

it’s fun said she

 

It is one of my rules in my top ten lists to throw in a kinky entry amidst my wilder special mentions, usually as my final (twentieth) special mention, at least where the subject matter permits.

And not surprisingly, here it does. Indeed, some might ask that isn’t all poetry er0tic – or, more broadly, love poetry? That is a popular conception of poetry – “How do I love thee, let me count the ways” and all that.

I tend to agree, at least in large part, and also speculate that the origin of poetry, again at least in large part, was by suitors to woo or court their targets – certainly that would seem to be the evo psych explanation. It therefore joins that other large part of the origin of poetry I speculated as war poetry in an earlier special mention – well, that and religious poetry.

While Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey certainly feature love and s€x as central subjects, they tend to be offscreen as it were. Ironically, love poetry in Western literature would not seem so much to originate from Homer, the usual origin of Western literature in general as well as so much in it, but from another poet whose name has become synonymous with the term sapphic – Sappho.

As per Camille Paglia – “Sappho shows that love poetry is how Western personality defines itself.”

From Sappho, it’s pretty much a scenic tour of poets through to the present day for the sheer prevalence, bordering on omnipresence, of er0tic or love poetry. Indeed, it would be an entertaining exercise to do so, perhaps as my nymphomancy of poetry, although to be honest it would be largely a repetition of Camilla Paglia’s “Love Poetry” essay I quoted, in which she does just that.

However, I will just stop in at two places on that scenic tour of love poetry here. The first is Shakespeare, whose poetry and particularly sonnets would have to rank highly on a scenic tour of love poetry.

The Shakespearean sonnets are notoriously love poetry, although of course they have other allusions or themes. I’m no Shakespearean scholar but I understand that there’s quite the volume of Shakespearean studies about whom Shakespeare was wooing or courting in his sonnets – mostly the “Fair Youth” but also the “Dark Lady” as something of a love triangle.

I also understand that Shakespeare used the word will as a multiple pun with double entendre meanings – not least for his own name but including, you know, for his little Will. On that point, Shakespeare and contemporary poets uses the word death as a double entendre for 0rgasm.

The second stopping point is the example of er0tic or love poetry I quoted at the outset – e.e. cummings, aptly enough as the top spot in my Top 10 Poetry and now as finishing point for my special mentions.

 

(cccome? said he

ummm said she)

you’re divine! said he

(you are Mine said she)

 

RATING:

X-TIER (WILD TIER)