Tweetspeak Poetry

Love Poems: Roses Are Red

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Roses are Red poems poetry prompt
Valentine’s Day, perhaps more than any other holiday (except Poetry at Work Day), seems to make poets of everyone. Well, to say “everyone” is overstating the matter. But Valentine’s Day certainly makes poets of the masses. I don’t see many anthologies or chapbooks or even Twitter teeming with Groundhog Day poems, for instance, though such an observance is a perfect occasion for poetry.

February 2

A crowd of long faces hung
over shadows in Punxsutawney
tells the critter to burrow
back underground—
hog the sunlight
no more, they say.
Of your unseasonably
cold prognostications
we’ve had our fill.

But no, it’s Valentine’s Day that summons would-be poets, offering up an unending stream of poems to woo a lover, or a potential. As much as the folks in Punxsutawney have had enough of Phil, their beloved groundhog, the Internet also has its fill of Reddit boards and discussion posts asking readers to submit their favorite Roses are red poems, and in so doing open a floodgate of phrases rhyming with Violets are blue that range from clever and whimsical to well, tragic in their unintended blunt-force impact on language.

The best known version of the poem, which seemed to enjoy a heyday in junior high school yearbooks a few decades back, is

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet
And so are you.

Now, if you do that Internet search you might find those last lines replaced with anything from a cheap pick-up line to an off-kilter stand-alone word like “microwave.” But to find the best Roses are red love poem, one needn’t look that far, at least in the way that the 16th century seems like just yesterday. The first version of this sentimental poem was written by Sir Edmund Spenser as a portion of verse from his epic poem The Faerie Queene,  written about Queen Elizabeth I in 1590.

But wondrously they were begot, and bred
Through influence of th’heauens fruitfull ray,
As it in antique bookes is mentioned.
It was vpon a Sommers shynie day,
When Titan faire his beames did display,
In a fresh fountaine, farre from all mens vew,
She bath’d her brest, the boyling heat t’allay;
She bath’d with roses red, and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.

It’s no racier than some of those poems on Reddit, but I think the junior high kids would have gotten the giggles over talk of brests and faeries and the nakedness that follows this verse in the full text. And maybe I’m snickering a little too at the irony of the poem next appearing in 1866 in Gammer Gurton’s Garland, or, The Nursery Parnassus: a choice collection of pretty songs and verses for the amusement of all little good children who can neither read nor run (never let it be said that catchy subtitles are a modern invention):

The Valentine

The rose is red, the violet’s blue,
The honey’s sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love, and I am thine ;
I drew thee to my Valentine :
The lot was cast, and then I drew,
And fortune said it should be you.

Spenser’s lines have surely been transformed over time; perhaps it could be said that they have mutated. But today, we have an opportunity to restore them to their former shynie glory.

Poetry Prompt

Write a poem using Roses are red / Violets are blue and take it to the next level. Maybe you reimagine the wording or sentiment, or make surprising alterations to the colors or flowers. Perhaps you can lift it out of its sugary sweetness and give it a more nourishing structure. Consider using the lines, or an alternate version of them, in a sonnet, a villanelle or a sestina. Share your poems with us in the comment box. Maybe you’ll even find a groundhog in the lines.

Photo by Clare Bell, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Will Willingham.

Will Willingham
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About Will Willingham

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.

Comments

  1. Maureen Doallas says

    Blue Blurred

    It is stained,
    the glass I see you through,
    reddening the lips
    of the few white roses
    you did not take
    from your last visit.
    They are, you said,
    thorn-less and thirsting,
    much the way I thirst
    for your welcome home
    just in time for spring
    violets to blur my blues.

    Reply

  3. L. L. Barkat says

    This is so funny and informative too. LOVE! (that’s appropriate for Valentine’s Day, right? 🙂 )

    And the comment box poems so far are only adding to the fun (and beauty).

    Shynie indeed.

    Reply

  5. Richard Maxson says

    Saint Valentinus

    The story is he healed with his hands
    his jailer’s blind daughter and left a note
    for her upon his death, signed, Your Valentine.

    We can imagine this in evening,
    she walking among the roses blanched in moonlight,
    as if they were etched into the familiar air
    that carried the sweet fragrance under a violet sky.

    She would dream of her Valentine, who gave
    her a world with an aspect outside of touch,
    and with the first dawn a mystery,
    the red sun painting itself yellow under a blue arch.

    It began this way as well as any other:
    Her friend sharing that morning’s sweet with tea,
    then moment by moment retold how the red rose
    opened the life for the daughter of a jailer.

    Reply

  8. Elizabeth Marshall says

    Hydrangae

    The soil dictates the color of the bloom
    Acid, more or less
    My love, you decide, dictate
    Whether I am blush or I am blue
    Rose and violet, my skin
    When I fell, hard for you

    The ground dictates the color of our love
    Holy, solid we shall not fall

    One day, when blooms have turned to ashen brown
    Dried, hydrangae holding beauty in their death

    The winter of our love
    I will recall
    How you hogged the covers in our bed
    And turned my skin a frozen shade of blue

    Reply

  9. Paul Willingham says

    My favorite “Roses are Red” poem was first heard in the stables at Churchill Downs prior to the ‘run for the roses'(maybe).

    Roses are red,
    violets are blue.
    Horses that lose,
    are made into glue.

    Reply

  10. Elizabeth Marshall says

    Cryptic

    My mother kept rose petals
    Inside a blue-green heart-shaped box

    Almost a child, she stood at the altar
    A child, I never understood exactly why
    Brown was the color of her love
    Age changed her
    Love turned upsidedown
    Her love is red again

    Reply

  12. Sandra Wirfel says

    A VALENTINE SONNET

    Yeah, Valentine’s Day is here once again
    The way I learn who I have as a friend
    A shoe box is decorated with lace
    With bright red hearts, glued all over the place
    My mouth waters with thoughts of a chocolate bar
    My dream valentine, a brand new red car
    No colored candy hearts with little words
    But my box remains totally empty
    No valentines were delivered to me
    No red roses delivered to my door
    Only a puddle of mud on my floor
    I hang my head in shame and walk away
    Who really needs this stinking holiday?

    Chaos and sadness my feelings are mixed.

    This is a work in progress. Still trying to get the flow right. but the only thing close to a Valentines Day poem.

    Reply

  13. Simply Darlene says

    yikes. the heartaches of elementary school – is it still celebrated as such?

    let
    us teach
    our children by
    the way
    we
    show
    and do
    love –

    least
    of which is
    the slipping
    of cards
    signed
    in crayola or ink, red and pink
    or the sinking
    of childish teeth
    into hunks of candy
    and chunks
    of bars

    let
    us teach
    our children the holding
    of the door,
    a carrying of another’s
    load,
    the baking
    of blueberry
    muffins –

    the living
    in the loving

    just
    because

    Reply

  15. Richard Maxson says

    Día de Muertos

    The Roses are dead, violets too.
    The Baby’s Breath must
    be waiting for you

    on their invisible stems,
    like a blue sky gathering the puff clouds,
    making the coming storm beautiful;

    cigarette smoke around my head
    as I pucker and blow
    the failed smoke rings;

    mostly they are like innocents,
    in a bone yard,
    their tiny, naïve faces bobbing at play.

    The day is gone, so
    are you—late afternoon
    I slept until two.

    I give the gravel a thin crunch
    in the drive and cross
    to the garden with its lavender

    and copper beetles
    working their way over the skeletons
    as I sip on my espresso.

    Reply

    • Sandra Wirfel says

      I wish I could sleep until two. This made me feel like even though death was all around life goes on with the simplicity of a good cuppa jo, or in my case a cuppa tea fixes everything.

      Reply

  16. Sandra Wirfel says

    RED
    Anger
    Courage
    Danger
    End of color spectrum
    Heat
    Love
    Passion
    Sacrifice
    Sexuality

    Red is a
    Revolution
    Both
    Anger and Love.
    Maybe
    it’s just
    a bipolar color,
    Not sure
    what it wants.

    Happy Valentines Days.

    Reply

  17. Rose Red says

    My dearest of valentines
    Again we meet
    To share words and wine
    And shake off defeat.

    I am still on my own
    When this day comes around
    It is your eyes come to mind
    Thoughts sincere – honor bound.

    A day I put violets in your hair
    The memory above the rest-
    Picking wild blueberries, the stains
    On fingers and hearts – forever bless’d.

    Bring this time to a close- with fondness
    The roses in your cheeks will swear
    Though we did not go the distance, my love
    No one could say that the love was not there.

    Reply

  19. Bethany Rohde says

    I finally finished this pantoum:

    A day away from Valentine’s–
    We almost forgot the flower bouquets
    My brother, my mother and I read the sign:
    Red Roses In Excess, Discount Today

    We almost forgot the flower bouquets
    The lipsticked clerk offers advice:
    Red roses in excess, discount today
    I handle the cellophane: They’re half-alive

    The lipsticked clerk offers advice
    I’m just looking for blue? Violets are blue.
    I handle the cellophane: They’re half-alive
    He’d prefer oak leaves or the branch of yew

    I’m just looking for blue, violets are blue
    Across the stone-flecked lawn: one canopy
    He’d prefer maple leaves or the branch of yew
    She brought his wool blanket to cover our knees

    Three sets of ice-white breath unfurl
    My brother, my mother and I read the sign:
    Her ears hold knots of ruby and pearl
    A day away from Valentine’s–

    Reply

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