February 14, 2024
e.e. cummings - “[i like my body when it is with your]”
Cummings may not traditionally be considered a love poet, but as a proud owner of the George James Firmage edited Erotic Poems, I think of Cummings as a poet of sensuality, love, and (lowercase r) romance. “[i like my body when it is with your]” is perhaps his best romantic work. A compressed yet evocative account of intimacy between the speaker and their lover, it begins with a description of bodies being with one another, and comes to a fever pitch when the words describing the bodies blend together, phrases forgoing standard spacing to combine just as the lovers’ bodies do: “i like,slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz.” This combination of classic Cummings formal experimentalism and intense sensuality sells me every time I return to it. —Colby Meeks
Ilya Kaminsky - “Of Weddings Before the War”
This whole collection actually. There’s nothing to say about it other than that Ilya Kaminsky makes me blush and burn and burst into pieces. Sonya! There has never been more love in the calling of a name. —Una Roven
Ada Limón - “The End of Poetry”
I’d be doing this poem a disservice if I didn’t include it. I’ve fallen for the repetition, the cadence, the ars poetica, the piecewise presentation of the world. Anyone who’s read Ada Limón’s work can tell that she really can do anything—and here she does everything and then undoes it all and I love it. —Leila Jackson
I am reading the Wikipedia page for Frank O’Hara (the poet, not the “Australian rules footballer”) in search of something to say. Someone who undoubtedly has no way of actually verifying this has written that he had “hundreds of friends and lovers throughout his life.” I’m not sure if those last three words were necessary clarification, but, either way, this poem captures something of that feeling of speeding down the highway, speeding so long you don’t realize when you’ve stopped. Incidentally—and this also comes from the Wikipedia page—Frank O’Hara died in a car crash after his taxi broke down. —Jessica Zhang
Agha Shahid Ali - “Even the Rain”
Ali’s love for poetic form encourages him to conquer cultural challenges in translation by popularizing the ghazal form in the West. And, this poem, in particular, not only pays homage to his cross-culture journey both as an individual and a poet, but it also highlights the different states of rain in its self-contained stanzas — each adding intricacy to the overall poem about Ali’s life and his struggles, but the love he still experiences and turns to in the face of all adversary. The ghazal is formally repetitive — the poem and reader and life are inundated with love and that’s the only way to smile in the face of rain. —Niya Chagantipati
2025