Love's Sonnets

1 sonnet = 14 lines. To give this project mathematical synergy, I’m writing four collections of 14 sonnets. 1 year = 52 weeks. 4  x 14 = 56. This is the mathematical truth behind my year-long Love’s Sonnets project. It will, in fact, last one year and four weeks. Furthermore, because several types of sonnet are… Continue reading Personification 13: Love is Remus

Shakespeare had a penchant for stating things by asserting the opposite is untrue. “Love is not love that alteration finds”, “Love alters not” and “Love’s not Time’s fool” are all taken from Sonnet 116 ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments’.  It is a powerful technique because it distinctly asserts a… Continue reading Personification 12: Love’s not from God

The seed idea for ‘Trust Quartermaster Love’ was that love can assist us in many ways through life. It can give us the strength to cope with things that would otherwise overwhelm us. It can make us feel joy. It can protect us when the elements of life threaten our wellbeing. The best personification character… Continue reading Personification 11: Trust Quartermaster Love

‘Love the Dealer’ draws comparison between the effects of love and of illegal drugs.

‘Born Fighter Love’ is one of the more pro-love sonnets in my personification series. It began with a simple thought; Love has all the attributes of a fighter. Love can inflict pain using skill, insight and experience. Logic concludes that Love is a fierce combatant. We’ve all experienced its ire. We’ve felt the pain of… Continue reading Personification 9: Born Fighter Love

‘Love is a Whore’ comes (if you’ll excuse the pun) next in the Personification series after last week’s ‘Love is the Nurse’. From care to caress in just seven days. A series of poems should play like a symphony: light and shade, calm before a storm, “there should be sunshine after rain” (‘Why Worry’, Dire… Continue reading Personification 8: Love is a Whore

Having written a few sonnets for this collection that are, at least in part, somewhat critical of love, a more celebratory one seemed appropriate. So this sonnet celebrates nurturing love. And the person that best represents nurturing love is… the nurse. The nurturing nurse. If we’re lucky, during our lives of “seven ages”, we will… Continue reading Personification 7: Love is the Nurse

Although this sonnet forms one of my personification series, it is arguably zoomorphism – giving things animal, rather than human, qualities. In defence, the animal I use has the name and qualities of a famous fictional human… Benjamin Button. I therefore feel its inclusion is vindicated. The inspiration for this poem is that form of… Continue reading Personification 6: Love is a Benjy Button Butterfly

When writing a personification sonnet, I first think of a form of love I want to feature then I try to work out what type of person matches that form of love. For this sonnet I wanted to explore hidden love, love that is intentionally buried deep within us. A miner seemed a suitable human… Continue reading Personification 5: Love is a Miner

‘Love loves not those’ is dedicated to unrequited love. Love is personified in this sonnet as a character who is indifferent to the wants and needs of those who love or depend on it. We all have the right not to love someone back. But being aware of that fact doesn’t make it easier for… Continue reading Personification 4: Love loves not those