I Name You Diamond -- A Love Poem

I Name you Diamond

Hard and rigid

You stand

Against fire and wind

Immovable

A rock among men.

I name you diamond

Clear and brilliant

Your face

Reflecting the sun

Pure and sure

Lightness shines through.

I name you Diamond

Gem of gems

You compete

With no one.

Rare and unfound

A miner's delight.

But ...

When I am near you

Your brilliance explodes, and

I am blinded

With love

And pierced

With longing.

I am cut down

To nothing

And wait.

Come hold me

In your strength

And dance with me

Through the caves

Of our universe.

Lover As Inanimate Objects

Comparing a lover to an inanimate object is nothing new. Men have been doing this for years. Some may argue that doing so is a great compliment to the loved one. Others may argue that comparing a man or woman to an "thing" objectifies them, and is harmful to the loved one.

This poem compares a lover to a diamond. Shakespeare compared a woman's beauty to a rose whose beauty would eventually fade in "Sonnet 54." Edmund Muller, a writer from this same period, also compares his prospective lover to a rose in the poem, "Song." Giving a compliment to the woman was often meant as a way to coax her to give away her favours.

A blazon was a particular poetic technique used during the 17th century. The blazon named off parts of the woman's body, like a catalogue, and use various metaphors or similes to compare them. An example of this technique is used by Edmund Spenser in his "Sonnet 64", and Shakespeare turns the convention on its head with his poem, "My MIstress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun."

Woman Poets

Women Writing Love Poems

Women writing love poems is a relatively rare thing in the world of literature. Traditionally, men wrote the poems and the women were the objects of their poems: their muses. So, the occasion of a woman writing a poem is much more rare. It implies a boldness and an initiative that would be considered more "male" in traditional thinking.

There are some note-able exceptions, however and it is interesting to examine some of these examples:

• Anne Bradstreet, a Elizabethan Puritan woman was a famous poet who, among her other works, also wrote poems to her husband. Her love poems are quite chaste and proper but show the emotion of a woman very attached to her lifelong partner.
• Emily Dickinson, who is well-known for her reflections on nature and death, also, surprisingly wrote a few love poems. She is rumoured to have been in love with a judge but she never married him. Her poems display a sense of intense longing and passion.
• One of the most famous love poems in the English language was written by a woman. The poem is "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." by Elizabeth Barret Browning. This literary dynamo was married to another famous poet, Robert Browning, and it seemed the two of them burned brightly in their love and creativity.
• Finally, a modern example. Maya Angelou, is perhaps the most well-known poet of our day and age. Her poems speak of justice, and women's issues and love. Her poem, "When You Come," is a response to seductions offered by an old flame. "When you come ... " she says, "I CRY." She is not excited at the prospect of love offered, but instead turns away, rejecting the falseness of it.