Synopsis
The thumping of your heart in your chest. A pit in your stomach. A blush. These are the symptoms of love sickness, and if you've ever experienced them, this book is for you.
Critically acclaimed poet and anthologist, Paul Janeczko has turned his attention to a new compilation of love poems for teens that collects the most poignant and moving musings about love from a diverse group of classic poets and writers like Shakespeare, Dickinson, Whitman, Millay, Angelou, and many more.
This is a book girls will carry with them always. They will dog-ear the pages, pass it to friends, sleep with it. And they will go back to it again and again and find in it the drama, the pain, the joy of loving.
Reviews
Grade 8 Up-Deliberately not focusing just on "the glories of new love," this collection of 59 poems is divided into five sections: the beginning of love, in love, alone in love, the end of love, and remembering love. Janeczko includes a diverse range of poets, from William Shakespeare to Maya Angelou to Rumi. The well-known classics are here, such as Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways." There are also some poems published in the last 10 years from Sophie Hannah and Harryette Mullen. The selections are presented with as little context as possible, highlighting the theme of love's timelessness. Each section opens with a double-page, rose-tinted, black-and-white photograph and a famous love letter. Teens looking for ideas for their own missives and poems will find lots of inspiration here.
Sonja Cole, Briarcliff Middle School, Mountain Lakes, NJ
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The cheesy title may put readers off, but the contents, compiled by Janeczko, are the real thing, though weighted toward the giants of English literature. Entries include a letter from John Keats to Fanny Brawne ("Do not I see a heart naturally furnish'd with wings imprison itself with me?"), Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Time Does Not Bring Relief" and Percy Shelley's rather brutal dismissal of Harriet Shelley ("I am united to another; you are no longer my wife") as she prepared to deliver their second child. This collection contains 60 pieces in all, ending with Naomi Shihab Nye's "I Still Have Everything You Gave Me": "I do not ache.// I would not trade."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Gr. 8-12. For this slim anthology, Janeczko chose more than the usual Valentine's Day poems about love's first rush: "I looked for longing, too, and for heartbreak." The result is a collection that speaks about "the shades of love," including the beginning of love, mature love, love unreturned, and faded love: "It is dusty on the edges. / It is slightly rotten," writes Naomi Shihab Nye. Selections are a mix of contemporary poems as well as famous ones representing several centuries, including a Shakespearean sonnet and John Donne's "The Good Morrow." Each section begins with an excerpt from a love letter, often written by a poet, and the intimate, wild tone of the letters makes an interesting contrast to the formal, structured poems. Additional notes about the poets and poems, particularly the more challenging works, would have been welcome. But Janeczko chooses a subject that will certainly draw interest, and the combination of letters and poetry offers a fine glimpse of what poets do: make beautiful, disciplined work from their deepest, undisciplined feelings. Gillian Engberg
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