Creative Valentine's Day: Write for Love, and to Beat Greeting Cards ...

The very pre-Hallmark manuscript of 14th-century poet Othon de Grandson, who helped popularize the Anglo-Saxon holiday of St. Valentine?s in continental Europe. (Photo courtesy of Flickr user e-codices.)

We don?t want to bully you. You might already feel bullied by the entire culture into marking Valentine?s Day in the conventional ways. You might love it, or you might think it?s a Hallmark holiday?but regardless, why not take it back from the Big Card and Big Chocolate industries? What better way to stick it to Hallmark than to write something special yourself?

Today, expanding on our ideas from last year?which we still think are pretty good, we have to say, so we hope you?ll excuse us for reusing some of them?we offer a rundown of ways to get you writing about the love in your life. You?ve only got a couple of days left, but hopefully you have just enough time to get your piece looking polished and fresh and ready to go out and bowl someone over with affection.

• Here?s a simple warm-up we started with last time, one that?s really made for this holiday: remember those acrostic poems you wrote in elementary school? Have you written one since? Wouldn?t it be fun to try? You can keep it short and sweet with a name (A-L-I-C-E), or relationship (M-O-T-H-E-R), or spell out a phrase like I L-O-V-E Y-O-U. If you?re feeling really inspired, try something longer like H-A-P-P-Y V-A-L-E-N-T-I-N-E-S D-A-Y Y-O-U H-A-V-E N-I-C-E E-A-R-S.

• An ode, a poem dedicated to or written in praise of a person or object, is a perfect Valentine form. For many modern poets, the ?object? part has been key. There are famous odes that range from the legendary and beautiful to the surreal and humorous, from John Keats? ?Ode on a Grecian Urn? and ?Ode to a Nightingale? to Pablo Neruda?s ?Ode to the Lemon? and ?Ode to the Artichoke.? Anyone or anything that moves you could be your subject.

Speaking of Pablo Neruda, did you hear a Chilean court has ordered that his body be exhumed to investigate his cause of death? No reason this holiday can?t be a little weird and dark, too. Neruda was a little weird and dark.

• Try your hand at a sonnet. Sonnets are tricky, but also well suited to grand expressions of love, and they?re beautiful and impressive if you pull it off. We?ll steer clear of pointing you to Shakespeare?s sonnets here, because he was just good at them to an unfair degree. But check out this positively glowing ode to Shakespeare himself by fellow Elizabethan playwright, and rival, Ben Jonson. He even warns against over-praising Shakespeare, but then pretty much goes and does it anyway. But hey, seems like he loved him!

• And taking this rare opportunity to be like Ben Jonson: don?t feel limited by notions of traditional romantic love for Valentine?s Day. Who else in your life could you write a love poem or letter for, to, or about? Your parents? Your children? Your friends? Somebody you have a totally unique relationship with that doesn?t have a label in the English language?

• What other things in your life do you love? ?Love? might be a strong word for a lot of stuff, but this is a good way to think about what?s valuable to you. We asked about stinky cheese, chocolate, green tea, and Brussels sprouts in our post last year; myself, I really like at least three of those things, but I don?t know if I would use ?love.? How about a well-used notebook, or prized photos of your family, or special heirlooms? Have you told your pet you love him or her lately, assuming they?ve been behaving? They?d probably like to hear it too.

There was an ode to Theraflu, that magic elixir, left in the comments on our post last year. Love can take so many forms:

?Ode to the pharmakon

You have been called a curse, but you are my cure
This frigid February brought Boreas
Yet, I lie still with sinuses unclear
To have a night of sleep would be glorious.
Unable to breathe, you pick me up
In the day, and put me down at night.
Though you are expensive, I would gladly
Pay one day?s wages for you in my cup
You, Theraflu have become my light
And now I lie sleeping, breathing freely
At night.?

• Think about writing about the body. A lot of romantic poetry focuses on physical beauty. Whether you love or hate that, try making it your own. Describe what you love about your beloved?s hands, hair, elbow, or neck, and see where it leads. Do you walk differently when you?re in love? Think, speak, see, or feel differently? You could try checking out some of NWA?s recent work on the ?Body Wisdom? theme for inspiration.

• This maybe isn?t quite a prompt, but it?s a handy thing to have in mind: love, and writing about it, can come from surprising places. Romance novels, even relatively classy ones written by a surprise ?89-year-old grandfather,? might not have that much to do with love as real people experience it?though, of course, if that?s what your life looks like and you enjoy it, more power to you. But it?s nice to remember around this holiday that people are full of surprises, and the universe has a crazy imagination. Think outside the box! People around you might just do the same.

• And you can certainly think outside poetry. You could try an essay, a story, a letter, a song, a transmission in Morse code?maybe even the first chapter of a surprise romance novel. It could be humorous, or maybe you end up writing a really good romance novel and it becomes a bestseller and you make a huge fortune off of it.

• Write a love letter to a change-maker or to a whole social justice movement you admire or are a part of. Write about the passion the leader(s) inspire in you, about the beauty of working towards a more just world, and about your desire for a society that treats each person with dignity and value. People are always thrilled to hear that their work is having an effect on someone.

We?d be thrilled to see what you come up with this time! Please share a snippet of your work or your thoughts with us in the comments.

Source: http://www.jot.org/blog/2013/02/12/creative-valentines-day-write-for-love-and-to-beat-greeting-cards/

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