May 7, 2008

Wuv Pomes

Some friends of mine who are getting married asked me to write a poem for their wedding. As anathematic as said task is to me, I have agreed to do it. Rather than trying to do this entirely on my own, I am planning on doing an erasure or mash-up of "famous" love poems in order to construct something new. This makes sense to me in the context of the marriage-ritual, insofar as it is a facet of "tradition" that people tend to re-interpret, so likewise a re-interpretation of already extant celebrations of same seems in order. Not being an authority on love poems, myself (I know a few but...), I bequeath you, dear reader, to tell me what poems of this genre that you like and make my job that much easier. (You don't necessarily have to *like* said poem, either, especially since I am going to chop it up and reassemble it with a bunch of others. Think of me as the Buffalo Bill of love poems...)

5 comments:

Nicholas Manning said...
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Nicholas Manning said...

Marvell, Neruda, Herrick, Louise Labé, Petrarch, Ronsard? Just some grist for the marriage-mill . . . Good luck Mark.

Geofhuth said...

Mark,

Of all the possible occasional poems one could write, I enjoy writing epithalamia the best. I've done only four, one for my own wedding. And only two (Nancy's and mine not included) did I perform at the wedding. Have fun with this, and remember to honor the occasion. The people have but a 50/50 chance of success.

Geof

Tim Peterson said...

A friend of mine was asked to do this for his sister, and at the wedding he stood up in front of everyone and said in a spooky voice:

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd..."

Heather June said...

Check out Into the Garden: A Wedding Anthology, edited by Robert Hass and Stephen Mitchell. There are some good, unexpected bits in there to cull from in addition to the usual suspects.