Fall in Love with a Local Poet

Little is known of the actual Saint Valentine, the 3rd century Roman saint, except that he was ordered beheaded by Emperor Claudius for failing to renounce Christianity, and that he may have restored the sight of the young blind daughter of either his judge or jailor.

The romantic legends and traditions that we have come to associate with Saint Valentine were likely invented in England in the 14th century. Medieval scholars say the very first reference to Valentine's Day as a time for lovers is contained in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Parliament of Fowles,'' a long poem describing the dream of a narrator who passes through the Temple of Venus to arrive at a special gathering where birds choose their mates on St. Valentine's Day.

So floral bouquets and chocolates aside, it seems fitting to celebrate the day with work by B.C.'s award-winning published poets who have written extensively and superbly about the myriad yearnings, delights, confusions, sorrows, misunderstandings, satisfactions and joys of love.

We often think of the kiss as a universal and timeless natural expression of romantic affection, but it is actually a relatively modern western phenomenon. Award-winning Victoria poet Patricia Young deftly explores different cultural rites around the world and through time, as well as the essential primal need underlying the urge to kiss in ''Origins of the Kiss.''

One of the most common themes in love poetry is the pain of not being noticed by the one you love or wish to love. Vancouver poet and founding editor of local literary magazine Poetry is Dead, Daniel Zomparelli depicts something many of us have experienced -- longing, profound anxiety and lost opportunity in ''Missed Connection.''

On the other side of the coin, recent winner of the City of Vancouver Book Prize for her memoir, How Poetry Saved My Life, Amber Dawn describes those ''romances you hardly remember at all'' in her poem ''There Are The Romances That Stick,'' chosen for B.C.'s Poetry in Transit 2013:

''They turn up in your memory like a key
found in the pocket of a coat you haven't worn for ages,
or a phone number scribbled on the last page of the self-help
book written by the Buddhist nun from Los Angeles
which you always fell asleep while reading, even on the bus,
and there is no name beside the number.''

Most of us will remember how the onset of puberty changed both our bodies and our interactions with the world. ''The Swimming Pool'' is a beautifully evocative poem about a teenaged girl's coming into sexual awareness as she enters womanhood, written by Governor General award-winning poet Lorna Crozier. Set at a local swimming pool, Crozier depicts the sensuousness of the water and the shift from daytime swimming lessons to night-time trysts with ''a strange boy/I'd never seen at school.''

On the subject of anonymity, Vancouver's newly minted Poet Laureate, Rachel Rose, writes a tongue-in-cheek lament about how fantastic lovers aren't valued publicly in her poem, ''Virtuouso'': ''If you are good at sex, though,/who will know your name?/…Even the chess players, even the speed eaters/even the spelling bee winners, are better known than you.”

The unmistakable sexual spark that can occur unexpectedly at the wrong time, wrong place, and worst of all with the wrong person is wonderfully and humorously depicted in Susan Musgrave's ''Exchange of Fire.'' The poem more than hints at the destructive force of passion:

''…when we rose
to say goodnight we would be expected
to embrace. We had to: the flesh

of your body down the length of my trembling
body, the thin cloth covering my breasts
covered with flames, the apologies to your wife
for the plastic buttons on your shirt front melting,
your belt buckle welding us together in our heat."

Other loving odes

Love poems, of course, can be about the love of nature, not necessarily about romantic love. Good poems are gifts of intimate attention: the poet has taken the time to witness the beauty that surrounds us that too often goes unnoticed. As Mary Oliver says, ''Attention is the beginning of devotion.'' Pender Island-based poet Kate Braid has written a lovely three-stanza ode to trees. Laisha Rosnau, an award-winning poet in B.C.'s Interior, describes the delight at hearing the sound of frogs under the deck of her home one early morning. In ''Harbour Seals,'' North Vancouver's Russell Thornton somehow captures the essential nature of seals as they roll, bob and sun themselves in the water. In ''Animal Love,'' Victoria poet Rhona McAdam vividly depicts the ''nuzzling, love-thrumming love'' of dogs for humans: ''…I am one of the rumbling/furred assembly living to twine about your legs/when you step out and among us in the morning.''

But let's return to the medieval origins of the romantic legends surrounding Valentine's Day and end with Elise Partridge's lyrical, haiku-like poem about enduring love. A much beloved and greatly respected poet both in Canada and the U.S., Partridge passed away from cancer at the end of January in Vancouver at the age of 56. Her love of language was inextricably connected to her love for life and all living things. This poem, which was chosen for B.C.'s Poetry in Transit program in 2009, focuses on a tiny exquisite medieval artifact as a metaphor for travelling together through life's vicissitudes.

Small Vessel
(A miniature boat found in a medieval hoard in Derry, North Ireland)

Like a gold-plated half-avocado
with a hatpin mast,
beansprout rudder,
oars as slender as dragonfly-torsos,

How fragile, our contraptions;
uninsurable storms!
What sail
Could we use?
A petal?

I trust in your arms.

Copyright © 2008, Elise Partridge. Reprinted with permission of Stephen Partridge and the publisher, from Chameleon Hours by Elise Partridge (House of Anansi Press Inc., 2008).