Love Poems 2019

Valentine's Tidings from Brooklyn; Love Poems by Emma Lazarus, T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson, and Anonymous.

Best beloveds, comrades, colleagues, 

It’s that rare February when I manage to send my yearly compilation of love poems out on Valentine’s Day instead of a day or two late. For those of you just joining, since 2011 I’ve emailed love poems to friends and colleagues on or around Valentine’s Day. I think that those who cavil and grouch about the holiday’s consumerist nature (&c) are missing an opportunity. During the past couple weeks in New York City, from Hell’s Kitchen to Park Slope, I’ve noticed homes that are decorated for Valentine’s Day, with red lights and cut-outs hearts or cupids in the windows. (It inspired me to get a Styrofoam heart at the dollar store and put it up in my window.) I take this as a welcome sign of a move toward using the holiday as a chance—during dark times; between freezing and thawing weather—to celebrate and invoke love in the most encompassing sense of the word, which has always been the purpose of this list as well.