Top Ten Tuesday; Romantic Poetry Collections For Valentine's Day

It's Tuesday and thus time for another Top Ten Tuesday post courtesy of That Artsy Reader Girl and as it was a love/Valentine's Day freebie week, I decided writing a list of romantic poetry collections. I might have gone a bit "bah, humbug" in the style of Ebenezer Scrooge while writing this list though, as I'm a bit cynical at times, given up on love/dating, and have been single for over 15 years, but so be it.

Here's my picks.

Love & Misadventure by Lang Leav

Description from Goodreads

Beautifully illustrated and thoughtfully conceived, Love and Misadventure will take you on a rollercoaster ride through an ill-fated love affair—from the initial butterflies through the soaring heights to the devastating plunge.  And, in the end, the message is one of hope.

The journey from love to heartbreak to finding love again is personal yet universal. Lang Leav's evocative love poetry speaks to the soul of anyone who is on this journey.  Leav has an unnerving ability to see inside the hearts and minds of her readers. Her talent for translating complex emotions with astonishing simplicity has won her a cult following of devoted modern poetry fans from all over the world. Forget the dainty, delicate love poems of yore; these little poems pack a mighty punch.

Lang Leav is a poet and internationally exhibiting artist. Her work expresses the intricacies of love and loss. Love & Misadventure is her first poetry collection.

Dirty Pretty Things by Michael Faudet

Description from Goodreads

Dirty Pretty Things is the much anticipated book by Michael Faudet. His whimsical and often erotic writing has already captured the hearts and minds of literally thousands of readers from around the world. He paints vivid pictures with intricate words and explores the compelling themes of love, loss, relationships and sex. All beautifully captured in poetry, prose, quotes and little short stories.

The Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare

Description from Goodreads

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. When this volume of Shakespeare's poems first appeared in 1609, he had already written most of the great plays that made him famous. The 154 sonnets - all but two of which are addressed to a beautiful young man or a treacherous 'dark lady' - contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, and deal with eternal subjects such as love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and the destruction wreaked by Time. Also included is A Lover's Complaint, originally published with the sonnets, in which a young woman is overheard lamenting her betrayal by a heartless seducer.

The Love Poems of Rumi

Description from Goodreads

Translated by renowned Rumi expert Nader Khalili, over 120 poems about love from the Persian mystic poet and Sufi master have been carefully collected and curated in this beautifully illustrated edition.

For more than eight centuries, Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi Rumi—commonly referred to simply as Rumi—has enchanted and enthralled readers from every faith and background with his universal themes of love, friendship, and spirituality, which he seamlessly wove into resplendent poetry.

The verses herein perfectly express and are centered on the theme of love, along with the quest, desire, and deeper meanings of love for not only ourselves, but also of our fellow humankind.

With intricately designed and richly colored covers that mirror the beauty of the words within, the Timeless Rumi series presents themed collections of poems from the great Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi Rumi that serve as cherished tools for self-reflection.

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda

Description from Goodreads

When it first appeared in 1924, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada launched a young and unknown poet, whose work would ignite a generation, into the international spotlight.

Drawn from the most intimate and personal of associations, Pablo Neruda's most beloved collection of poetry juxtaposes the exuberance of youthful passion with the desolation of grief, the sensuality of the body with the metaphorical nuances of nature.

Eighty years after its publication, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada stands as an essential collection that continues to inspire lovers and poets around the world.

The Poetry of Lord Byron

Description from Goodreads

Famously described as 'mad, bad and dangerous to know', Lord Byron was the quintessential romantic poet - flamboyant, tragic and exceptionally gifted. His life and work have been a source of constant fascination for over two centuries. He composed some of the greatest verse ever written that has enthralled readers for generations. Passionate yet thoughtful, his poetry ranged from historical epics to romantic odes and biting satires. This collection presents the reader with the start of the literary legend, offering insight into the entirety of his work, from his juvenilia to his final pieces, including such favourites as 'She Walks in Beauty', 'Darkness', and 'To Woman', as well as excerpts from his longer poems 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' and 'Don Juan'. ABOUT THE SERIES: Arcturus Great Poets Library brings together moving and inspiring verse from some of the greatest poets in history, presented with beautiful new cover designs with graphic motifs.

Cult of Two by Michael Faudet

Description from Goodreads

Michael Faudet’s latest book delves deeper into the meaning of love, the intricacy of relationships, self-empowerment, seduction, and sex. Taking the reader on a whimsical and sometimes heartbreaking journey, where fantasy and reality collide. Cult of Two is much more than just a beautiful collection of poetry, prose, and short stories. It is a compelling invitation to confront and explore the conflicting emotions that live within all of us.

Cult of Two is the fifth book of internationally bestselling poet Michael Faudet, author of Winter of Summers , Smoke & Mirrors , Bitter Sweet Love , and Dirty Pretty Things —a finalist in the Goodreads Readers Choice awards. His intimate writing style and exquisite ability to paint pictures with words has captured the imagination and hearts of thousands of people from around the world.

Love Poems by Pablo Neruda

Description from Goodreads

Charged with sensuality and passion, Pablo Neruda's love poems are the most celebrated of the Nobel Prize winner's oeuvre, captivating readers with earthbound images and reveling in a fiery re-imagining of the world. Mostly written on the island paradise of Capri (the idyllic setting of the Oscar-winning movie Il Postino), Love Poems embraces the seascapes surrounding the poet, and his love Matilde Urrutia, their waves and shores saturated with a new, yearning eroticism.

And when you appear

all the rivers sound

in my body, bells

shake the sky,

and a hymn fills the world.

Love Speaks Its Name edited by J. D. McClatchy

Description from Goodreads

From Sappho to Shakespeare to Cole Porter - a marvellous and wide-ranging collection of classic gay and lesbian love poetry. The poets represented here include Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, Gertrude Stein, Federico García Lorca, Djuna Barnes, Constantine Cavafy, Elizabeth Bishop, W. H. Auden, and James Merrill. Their poems of love are among the most perceptive, the most passionate, the wittiest, and the most moving we have. From Michelangelo's ''Love Misinterpreted'' to Noël Coward's ''Mad About the Boy, '' from May Swenson's ''Symmetrical Companion'' to Muriel Rukeyser's ''Looking at Each Other, '' these poems take on both desire and its higher love in all its tender or taunting variety.

Lullabies by Lang Leav

Description from Goodreads

A sequel to the hugely popular, best-selling Love & Misadventure, Lullabies continues to explore the intricacies of love and loss.

Set to a musical theme, love's poetic journey in this new, original collection begins with a Duet and travels through Interlude and Finale with an Encore popular piece from the best-selling Love & Misadventure. Lang Leav's evocative poetry speaks to the soul of anyone who is on this journey.

Leav has an unnerving ability to see inside the hearts and minds of her readers. Her talent for translating complex emotions with astonishing simplicity has won her a cult following of devoted fans from all over the world.

Lang Leav is a poet and internationally exhibiting artist.