BookLust: Poetry, Schmoetry

Lovesonnets

Ahhh... young love. Do we ever really get over it? For over 20 years I have tried to convince myself that I have, but all it takes is a certain smell (it's almost always a smell for some reason; spring or fall mornings, old Adidas shoes, or else the music of Gilbert and Sullivan), and I am right back there, at the age of seventeen, ecstatic and miserable, and basically, a complete mess. Don't get me wrong; I would not want to go back to that time for anything in the world; the here and now is wonderful. But every now and then, going back there doesn't bother me that much any more. I can see the good in between all the very, very bad.

One good thing that came out of that experience: He got me writing. Sure, I wrote short stories and cartoons before I met him, but he challenged me to write clever, witty, out-of-the-ordinary poetry. He got me thinking in a different way. We weren't gushy and mushy about our affections; that would have been beneath us. We strived to show our affection through the guise of humour and play. Not unlike Shakespeare, which was where I got to know him, really, in my grade 13 Elizabethan Drama and Poetry class. We learned all about the sonnet, and ended up practicing what we learned in class on each other. I'm not saying that our iambic pentameter was perfect, but we did make an effort to try to stay within the rules as our poetic skills and our romance blossomed. Sound cheezy? Maybe.

Not too long ago, Scott over at Blankbaby wrote a wonderful love poem about a ham sandwich, which got me thinking about the first poem that he ever wrote for me. It was actually the first love poem ever written for me. Back then, I loved bran muffins. Ate them all the time. So he, in his great wisdom, wrote a love sonnet for me, about my love of bran muffins. I'm not saying it's amazing, but I still can't forget it. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I posted this; no doubt he doesn't think about this stuff at all anymore. Or me, for that matter.

Oh, and I don't eat bran muffins anymore. Way too fattening.

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