Spring Break
Poetry perfect present for love-struck gift-givers
by Hannah Kirsch
Deputy Editor
Arts | 11/11/08
Posted online at 1:59 AM EST on 11/11/08
In case you've been living under a pile of biochemistry textbooks for the past month or so, poor beleaguered reader, the United States is having a few economic troubles of the severe recession variety. Concurrently, the gift-buying season is starting earlier than ever, as evidenced by holiday-themed commercials that Wal-Mart, Victoria's Secret and Best Buy have already begun to air. 'Tis the season to spend all your earnings from the past semester, but in today's shaky market, you may want to save as much as possible for, say, graduate school tuition or a cash buffer in case that post-graduation job doesn't immediately materialize. But, you ask, you amorous student, you, how can I delight my one and only without significant spending? Simple: love poetry, a volume of which can be a gift unto itself or an example of which can evaporate the materialism of a more standard trinket.
Now, not your own love poetry. Unless you are that one Creative Writing major who blows us all away with subtle, original verse, allow me to be painfully blunt and say that you are much, much better off pilfering from the masters of the written word.
The gorgeous imagery of Pablo Neruda's work comes through even in translation. His sonnets to his beloved wife Matilde are at once universal and intimate, earthy and divine. Neruda pulls out all the stops with the first stanza of "Sonnet XVII": "I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz / or arrow of carnations that propagate fire / I love you as certain dark things are loved / Secretly, between the shadow and the soul." "White Bee" contains a staggeringly subtle description of "the solitude from which you are absent." In short, a book of Neruda's poetry might be an effective expression of feeling, or inclusion of a stanza along with a simple locket could make a bauble into something memorable.
Perhaps the object of your affections prefers the sight of brocade and embroidery to the scent of damp soil, in which case various English poets of the 16th and 17th centuries would be more to his or her taste. The one caveat amator is that the complex language and witty metaphor of these works might craft a religious, vaguely misogynistic or otherwise wholly unromantic message; tread carefully, and recognize that cloying romance need not be synonymous with love, and realism need not be its antonym.
Now, not your own love poetry. Unless you are that one Creative Writing major who blows us all away with subtle, original verse, allow me to be painfully blunt and say that you are much, much better off pilfering from the masters of the written word.
The gorgeous imagery of Pablo Neruda's work comes through even in translation. His sonnets to his beloved wife Matilde are at once universal and intimate, earthy and divine. Neruda pulls out all the stops with the first stanza of "Sonnet XVII": "I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz / or arrow of carnations that propagate fire / I love you as certain dark things are loved / Secretly, between the shadow and the soul." "White Bee" contains a staggeringly subtle description of "the solitude from which you are absent." In short, a book of Neruda's poetry might be an effective expression of feeling, or inclusion of a stanza along with a simple locket could make a bauble into something memorable.
Perhaps the object of your affections prefers the sight of brocade and embroidery to the scent of damp soil, in which case various English poets of the 16th and 17th centuries would be more to his or her taste. The one caveat amator is that the complex language and witty metaphor of these works might craft a religious, vaguely misogynistic or otherwise wholly unromantic message; tread carefully, and recognize that cloying romance need not be synonymous with love, and realism need not be its antonym.
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