Poets and Poems: James Tweedie and “Love Found, Yearned For, and Lost”

I’m a sucker for a good love poem. Apparently, I’m not the only one. Poetry about the subject of love is as old as poetry itself. Some of the most famous poems in literature are about love. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Lord Byron’s “She walks in beauty.” “Endymion” by John Keats. Robert Burns’ red, red rose. William Butler Yeats’ “When You Are Old.” Virtually every poet has written about love. And it’s no wonder. Love may be the emotion, the feeling, the condition, and the presence we experience across languages, culture, histories, and geographies. 

 

As poet James Tweedie demonstrates in his new collection, Love: Found, Yearned For, and Lost, love is a big topic, not only covering a range of conditions and realities but also poetic forms. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Bird Lands – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

“Heredity,” poem by Thomas Hardy – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Tomb of Poetry: A reading of Shakespeare’s 15^th, 16^th, and 17^th sonnets – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood.

 

“Little Orphant Annie,” poem by James Whitcomb Riley – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“To a Louse,” poem by Robert Burns – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

Poets and Poems: James Tweedie and “Mostly Sonnets”

While the sonnet may be the poetic form most closely associated with romance and love, poet James Tweedie uses it for a wide array of other themes and subjects as well – daily life, daydreaming by a river, a Christmas memory, travels through Scotland and Ireland, the beauty of a sunset, and even a pandemic disease like the Black Death.  

His Mostly Sonnets: Formal Poetry for an Informal World includes 37 sonnets. The collection also contains 16 other poems that use traditional forms. Tweedie’s poetry depicts an eternal order underlying a superficially chaotic world, an understanding that sometimes myths – like the romantic view of war – need to be challenged, and that we have much to learn from history. 

 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.