Love & Words

Back when Turntable.fm just started getting popular, a few of us joined Neil Gaiman on the site to share recordings of poetry in “Neilhimself’s House of Poetry.” The site had a small selection of recorded poems, but many of us scoured the internet and personal collections to find our favorites to share: Poe, Glück, Yeats, Levertov, Cummings, etc. It was a nice way to spend an hour at midnight while taking a break from writing.

It’s been over a year since the last poetry sharing night, so when I saw that the Poetry Foundation was celebrating with recorded love poetry for Valentine’s Day, I was excited to listen. The Poetry Foundation page is here and will lead you to a selection of recorded love poems. This is from their website:

Send your beloved one of these love poems submitted to our Record-a-Poem group on SoundCloud. Or go to our SoundCloud and record your own love poem.

I was tempted. I know many people protest, but I love the holiday (you can read why here).

So here’s my poem for you, a gift for Valentine’s Day. It’s a little cheeky, a little sexy, and I was more than a little nervous recording it. But Valentine’s Day seems as good a day as any to take risks for things we love, so here goes…

Click here to listen to Sediction by Valya Dudycz Lupescu

 

 

Sediction 

I want to seduce you with my words—wistful and wanton.  I want you

to feel me behind each one. Not brief like breath,

not

quick

like

Cummings,

my lines are long, stretching like lavish strokes to reach you, sliding along the page

to create a scene where you can dwell. Words to slip you inside,

surround you with sounds, and hold you at the threshold between desire and pleasure.

 

When I enjamb, it’s to create tension that can only be released when you move down

to the next line, and if I drop a line, like layers cast away, I do it by design to create

anticipation.

So much is rush and flash and burst in frantic fleeting glances, but iambs

keep the rhythm steady, help me straddle the canon, holding onto Williams’s foot

while riding Whitman’s whimsical waves. Then there’s the break

 

to make you wait, to leave you wondering why and when it will all start again.

Hanging off the end of a dash like Dickinson, I want you—

to imagine. Desire requires space,

the white around words,

the uncertainty of ellipses . . .

 

by Valya Dudycz Lupescu

© 2014 Valya Dudycz Lupescu

 vday cheers

Published by Valya

Valya Dudycz Lupescu has been making magic with food and words for more than 20 years, incorporating folklore from her Ukrainian heritage with practices that honor the Earth. She’s a writer, content developer, instructor, and mother of three teenagers. Valya is the author of MOTHER CHRISTMAS, THE SILENCE OF TREES, and the founding editor of CONCLAVE: A Journal of Character. Along with Stephen H. Segal, she is the co-author of FORKING GOOD: An Unofficial Cookbook for Fans of The Good Place and GEEK PARENTING: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family (Quirk Books), and co-founder of the Wyrd Words storytelling laboratory. Valya earned her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her poetry and prose have been published in anthologies and magazines that include, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Kenyon Review, Culture, Gargoyle Magazine, Gone Lawn, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium. You can find her on Twitter @valya and on Mastodon.social @valya

2 thoughts on “Love & Words”

  1. Al says:

    Great fun to read, even better on listening. Thanks for sharing

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