Love, actually – Valentine’s Day 2021

21st January 2021

Here and now, in January 2021, we can see the days getting longer and lighter at the same time as Covid-19 does its best to make them shorter and darker. To play out part in tipping more light into the balance, we’re thinking this week about the light of love in all its forms. What better time to say ‘I love you’ than now? And who better to help us to say it than the poets?

We’ve created a performance gallery where you can enjoy some of the fantastic recitations of love poems by former Poetry By heart contestants. Be blown away by Jordanah’s powerful performance of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s ‘Invitation to Love’, then prepare to be completely charmed by Will, Wardah, Sarah, William, Jack and Clover reciting their selection of poems.

We hope these seven performances might inspire you or your students to learn a love poem for Valentine’s Day. One of our very favourite poetry recitation teacher-stories is this. A teacher told her year 10 boys that learning a poem by heart and reciting it on Valentine’s Day was a great way to impress the objects of their affections. They were highly sceptical but intrigued. Next lesson, a lad walked into class and shrugged, “it worked Miss”. We love that story!

Below we’ve curated three little clusters of love poems from across the Poetry By Heart website for you to enjoy and explore, to share in class or it at home. We’d love to hear what you would add, subtract or substitute in the clusters – tweet, call or email us your suggestions.

Friends and Family

Raymond Antrobus, ‘Happy Birthday Moon’
Dad reads aloud. I follow his finger across the page

Valerie Bloom, ‘Granny Is’
Granny is

Berlie Doherty, If You Were A Carrot
If you were a carrot

Ted Hughes, ‘Cat’,
You need your Cat

E. Pauline Johnson, ‘Lullaby of the Iroquois’,
Little brown baby-bird, lapped in your nest

Jackie Kay, ‘Double Trouble’
We were rich and poor

Grace Nichols,‘Praise Song for my Mother’
You were

Classic love

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ‘How Do I Love Thee/ Sonnets From The Portuguese’
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

John Clare, ‘First Love’
I ne’er was struck before that hour

John Donne, ‘The Good Morrow’
I wonder by my troth, what thou and I

Christopher Marlowe, ‘The Passionate Shepherd To His Love’
Come live with me and be my love

Walter Raleigh, ‘The Nymph’s Reply To The Shepherd’,
If all the world and love were young

William Shakespeare, ‘Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?’
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Philip Sidney, ‘Song From Arcadia’
My true-love hath my heart and I have his

Modern love

Carol-Ann Duffy, ‘December’
The year dwindles and glows

Ian Duhig, ‘From The Irish’
According to Dinneen, a Gael unsurpassed

Paul Dunbar, ‘Invitation To Love’
Come when the nights are bright with stars

Mick Imlah, ‘Maren’
You saw so much romance in competition

Jackie Kay, ‘Dusting the Phone’
I am spending my time imagining the worst that could happen

Edwin Morgan, ‘Strawberries’
There were never strawberries

Alice Oswald, ‘Wedding’,
From time to time our love is like a sail