Thresholds

Today is Valentine’s Day the day when a poem can become a gift of love.

A poem is like a pearl – a language-jewel provoked into existence by the grit of feeling or revelation, when language is love’s stammering, inarticulate messenger.

Words, Wide Night

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad?  In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you and this

is what it is like or what it is like in words.

 Carol Ann Duffy

There are many stories, tokens and gifts of love in Cambridge University museums and collections.  Step over the threshold and find an idea for your love poem.

For more thoughts on love poetry, go to our resources page where Carol Ann Duffy writes about her favourite love poems.