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The question of love in the modern age hangs heavy, a shroud over the potential for poetic expression. Recently, while teaching a class on love poems, I found myself confronting a stark realization: I don’t understand love in the context of today’s world. The traditional notion of love poetry, the kind requested for weddings, feels oppressive, a relic of a bygone era. So, I posed the question to my students: what does a love poem look like in 2015, or even now, years later?
Is it about fleeting connections facilitated by technology? Is it about the anxieties of modern life, the pressures of social media, the constant barrage of information? Perhaps it’s about the struggle for social justice, the fight for equality, the ever-present specter of violence and injustice. Or maybe it’s about something simpler, a yearning for connection in a world that often feels isolating.
I’ve often felt alienated from the traditional canon of poetry, particularly its focus on a romanticized, often exclusionary vision of love. Growing up, the stereotypical portrayal of love in popular culture felt foreign, a privilege not afforded to those grappling with more immediate concerns. While others swooned over rom-coms, I questioned the societal structures that perpetuated inequality and injustice. Love, in its idealized form, seemed unattainable, a luxury for those who didn’t have to worry about the daily realities of prejudice and systemic oppression.
The Language of Resistance
There’s a different kind of language that resonates with me, a language of resistance and social change. Words like “indictment,” “abolition,” “forgiveness,” “intersectional,” “overthrow,” and “boycott” hold a power and urgency that traditional love poems often lack. These words speak to the complexities of our time, the need for systemic change, and the ongoing fight for justice.
Baraka’s Prophecy: “No Love Poems Until Love Can Exist Freely”
Amiri Baraka’s “Black Art” contains a powerful, albeit painful, truth: “Let there be no love poems written/ until love can exist freely and/ cleanly.” This sentiment echoes my own feelings about the state of love in the world. We seem to have lost our understanding of true love, mistaking it for loyalty, obsession, or even hate.
Has Love Become a Commodity?
My students believe poets possess a heightened sensitivity to the human condition. I, too, experience love – for family, friends, art, and the world around me. But in a world consumed by consumerism and indifference, it feels as though love is constantly being drained away. The idealized, abundant love often depicted in poetry feels like a scarce resource, commodified and inaccessible.
How can we write love poems when we don’t love the earth we inhabit, when we harbor hatred for strangers, when we fail to love ourselves enough to demand change? My sensitivity to the human condition seems more attuned to destruction than to love.
A World in Need of Love
This is not a world conducive to love poems. And yet, I yearn for it to be. I long to write a love poem, to pour my heart onto the page. But first, I need to be convinced that love is still possible, that it can flourish in the face of adversity. I need to be reminded that I am worthy of love, and that love, in all its forms, is worth fighting for.