Another short but (bitter)sweet poem, in which St. Vincent Millay characterizes her lover as an evaporating pool of water.

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So short, but so perfect. Merwin captures in just a few lines a vision of his lover’s absence as:
1. A needle through him (initial trauma of loss)
2. A needle threaded with color (lingering trauma that affects all his actions beyond her)

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The master of the love poem takes on his biggest adversary: loneliness. Many people on Valentine’s Day Experience something like Neruda describes, the romantic pairings of the world around him “surround[ing] my lonely residence, like enemies lined up against my soul,”

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A simple poem by Anna Swir that takes on heartbreak in the small physical scope of a room. The loss of her love is one of silence, purity, and a break from nature. The final lines:

Do not come anymore.
I am an animal
very rarely.

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I mean, come on. No one does love, heartbreak, or erotica poems like E.E. Cummings. His use of the Petrarchan form (to preserve) contradicts the poem’s intention (to let go), making for a painful back and forth between Cummings and himself on how he can accept this inevitable demise of his relationship.

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Instead of tackling love, Hirshfield tackles the love poem, personifying it in sadly real and poignant ways – following it from first attraction to embarrassing rejection.

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While arguably not a poem entirely about heartbreak, Holiday’s visceral poem grapples with new and aggressive love that enchants, fills, and disorients (indulgent) and follows it to its breaking point (disillusioned silence).

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Conversation that should be easy, but has morphed into a representation of the relationship – unfitting, imperfect, and at its close.

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