Love: Sweet and Cheesy

Beneath my cool, calm, steely exterior is a gaping hole where a soft spot lies for a mushy thing called…love poetry. Back in my more youthful days when my memory wasn’t as poor as it is today, I used to memorise my favourite poems, and then recite them to nobody – although, they may or may not have made an appearance in a love letter or two. So, because it is love week at Trespass (and if you can’t get sentimental during love week, when can you?), I would like to discuss some things pertaining to romantic love - and let it by no means jeopardise my cool, calm, steely exterior.

Poetry has always been my first love. Well before I wanted to be a writer, I wrote poetry; poems, I might add, which will never see the light of day, and that is my one gift to the world.

It is my belief that love poems are the most emotive, and often express sentiments that tell us as much about the poet as it does about his/her experiences. Moreover, to me, it is not so much about the romance as it is about the sweetness – the courtship, the poet’s pride-less confession, the words used to measure love’s torment, joy, longing, and their attempt to put into words the indescribable feeling of love. Then of course, there’s the punchline; when flowery descriptions abruptly end with an assertive yet blunt revelation.

In Japan, during the Heian period, lovers in courtship used to exchange a form of poetry called waka, usually written to express one’s feelings of love, loss or longing. During that conservative time, lovers would meet at night and fall asleep under their robes until dawn arrived, referred to as Ariake – a time when they would be forced to leave each other’s side. The woman would then perform the ritual of helping her lover put on his robes in preparation for his departure, and whilst they waited for their next meeting, they would write each other a poem as a token of their love for one another, and to express the heartache felt during their time apart. An anonymous writer writes:

“Early morning glows

In the faint shimmer

Of first light.

Choked with sadness

I help you into your clothes.”

And another waka, also by an anonymous writer:

“Do not look at me

Tenderly as tender grass

In a fence of reeds

If you smile at me like that

People are sure to know.”

 

Poetry has long been an instrument of courtship, albeit a rather archaic and not so commonly used tool. Pablo Neruda – one of my favourite poets – inspired by his third wife, Matilde Urrutia, dedicated a volume of sonnets to her. In a letter to Urrutia (cited in, 100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda), he explains: “Now that I have declared the foundations of my love, I surrender this century to you: wooden sonnets that rise only because you gave them life.” And if you’re particularly lactose intolerant and can’t stand the stench of cheese, allow me to further test your gag reflexes with an excerpt from Neruda’s Sonnet LXVI:

“I love you only because it is you I love,

I hate you endlessly, and in hating you I beg you,

And it’s the measure of my vagrant love

Not to see you and yet to love you blindly too.”

 

Maybe the beauty of love poems is rooted in the idea that they often express words we want to hear or words we wish we could say. Or perhaps Mr. Big from Sex and The City was right – love letters and poetry were written out of necessity, during a time when lovers were forced apart by distance and war.

Nowadays, there’s really no need to pen a letter at all. Convenience has replaced sentiment, and minutes, hours. We live in a time where online dating is quickly becoming the norm, 160-character Twitter messages are a tool for flirtation, speed-dating an after work special, and a simple heart-shaped emoticon spells out the word, L.O.V.E. Besides, I will readily admit that if I received a love poem, I’d mostly likely respond to it with a raised eyebrow and a stomach full of eek. And perhaps throw up a little. Or maybe, it’s all about hearing it from the right person, who says the right words, at the right time.

In Greek mythology, as discussed in Plato’s Symposium on the topic of eros, it is theorised that Zeus first created humans as spherical figures made up of two people joined together. As a whole, these beings were strong, brave and complete, and feeling a sense of power, one day decided to roll up into the heavens to challenge the gods. In retaliation to their arrogance, Zeus decided to split the ‘spherical humans’ into two halves, which resulted in what we today come to know as, individual people.

The heart of the theory is this: we spend our whole lives searching for our other half in order to be reunited with them again. Until then, we are incomplete because allegedly, we are dying to whisper the immortal words of Jerry Maguire: “You complete me.” Or more articulately:

“When a person meets the half that is his own…something wonderful happens: the two are struck by the senses of love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don’t want to be separated…not even for a moment.”

- Aristophanes in Symposium

It’s a fine theory, if not, a fine metaphor that describes that sense of ‘wholeness’ felt when in the glorious possession of love. But I believe that Greek poet, Sappho, best describes the idea and truth of love as quite simply, bittersweet.

Much of Sappho’s poetry is lost, and those that have been found are fragmented pieces or just one-liners from whole poems. Due to this, they are often incomplete sentences and stanzas that don’t quite seem to fit together. But the magic behind her poetry is its ability to tease one’s imagination into making her fractured poems complete – whether it’s inserting a missing word, or guessing where the poem might have gone. To a certain extent, it is its incompleteness that adds to the hollow, the anticipation, the feeling of wanting more that love often brings. It is also Sappho that wrote one of my favourite poems – the minimalist but nonetheless effective:

“as long as you are willing”

Irrespective of whether we say it out loud or not, I’m sure we all, to some degree, hope that we may one day find that elusive ‘one’. And if anything, the great love poets have taught us one thing: consume less cheese. To that end, I leave you with a few sweet words taken from the poem, ‘Je t’aime’ by one of the most influential surrealist writers of all time, Paul Eluard:

“I love you against everything which is only illusion

For that immortal heart over which I have no power

You think that you are doubt but you are just reason

You are the powerful sun that rushes to my head

When I am sure of myself.”

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