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Overview
Love. It has forever inspired poets, and those touched by its power and grace still find new words to celebrate it. Nothing moves the spirit or the pen of the poet quite like love.
Author June Cotner has long been fascinated by the course of the lifetime relationship between husbands and wives: from the electric sizzle and wild imaginings of love's beginning through the early years of marriage, filled with discovery and grand dreams of the future, and ultimately till the day we part, still in love and grateful for the lifetime companionship.
In Forever in Love, Cotner has collected her favorite love poems and arranged them in chapters set as mileposts in love's long journey. Beginning entries include "The Search," "Attraction," "Longing," and "Courtship." The middle chapters include "Commitment," "Early Years," and "Daily Life," and the book closes with poems gathered under the headings of "Partings" and "Reflections."
Cotner's selections for this compendium are as inspired as the words themselves. Classic writers such as Dickinson, Shakespeare, and Browning lend well-loved words, but this broad-ranging collection draws most of its content from poets writing today, assuring that every reader will discover many new gems to share with one's partner.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781449465841 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Andrews McMeel Publishing |
| Publication date: | 01/06/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 10 MB |
About the Author
Table of Contents
A Letter to Readers xiv
Thanks xvii
The Search
My Beautiful Love, As Yet Unknown 2
In Transit 3
The Blues 4
You, I Hope to Find 5
My First Love Story 6
The Attraction
Him 8
Transforming Love 10
Brown Eyes 11
Seeing You 12
I Think I Am in Love 13
Longing
Say 16
Wild Nights! Wild Nights! 17
While I Asked Myself 18
At the Half-Chance of Being Loved 19
My Heart 20
Appoggiatura 21
Only You 22
Courtship
The Bait 24
Every Kiss Provokes Another 25
Questions 26
Last Name 28
Merging
The Kiss 30
Remembering 31
A Love Song 32
Now! 33
Beloved 34
Request 35
Commitment
This Night 38
Night Secret 39
Basket of Figs 40
A Heart Full of Love 41
Unconditional 42
Although I Conquer All the Earth 43
Double Image 44
Give Me Ten More Years 45
The Gift 46
Oath of Friendship 47
Early Years
First House 50
Love Poem 52
Roots 53
Marriage Takes Work 54
Summer on the Farm 55
We Can 56
Daily Life
Ordinary Life 58
Warranty 60
Away in Virginia, I See a Mustard Field and Think of You 61
From the Astronaut of Your Heart 62
Love Life 64
To Turn from My Forgetting 66
Upon Awakening 68
Why 69
Small Failures as a Wife 70
Husband Out of Town Thinks About His Wife 72
Finding Us in Jackson Pollack 73
The Best Part 74
Choices 75
Gratitude 76
In This Season 77
In the Middle 78
Struggles
Marriage Work 82
Surviving the Seasons 83
Another New England Winter 84
Cooperation 86
How to Return to Your Husband 87
Long After the Loss 88
Calling Truce 90
Sleeping with You 91
Mature Love
Tenth Anniversary 94
In the Light of Another Moon 96
For My Beloved 97
To My Husband on Our Anniversary 98
Their Adventures 99
First Kiss 100
Anniversary 102
My Wife Breaks Out 104
After All These Years of Loving You 105
Possibly 106
Magic 108
Walking in Monet's Gardens at Giverny 109
Later Years
Husband Song 112
I Held Her Hand Like Porcelain 113
Epithalamium 114
Book Lovers 115
Transition 116
Long Run Play 117
In the Comfort Zone 118
Still Life 119
In Sickness
Living Will 122
For Better, For Worse 123
If We Let It 124
For My Wife in the Bone Marrow Unit 126
Love...and Chemo 127
Touch 128
After His Second Heart Attack: A Psalm 129
Porcelain Fragments 130
My Husband's First Time Out Since the Diagnosis 132
Helpless 134
Partings
This Love 136
Aftereffects 138
Alone 139
The Widow 140
Driving Alone 142
At the Cimitiere de Montmartre 143
Passage 144
On Valentine's Day 146
Seasons Lost 148
Alone Is an Empty House 150
Music, When Soft Voices Die 151
You Are Still Here 152
Be with Me 153
Migration 154
Reflections
Marriage 156
Loving the Distance Between Them 157
What Counts 158
Once in a Lifetime 159
The Living Dream 160
The Greatest Blessing in Marriage 161
Marriage Is a Spiritual Contract 162
Author Index 163
Permissions and Acknowledgments 167
About the Author 173
Interviews
The selections in Forever in Love are a result of years collecting poems about love and marriage that touched me emotionally. When you say "I do," it is intended to be forever, and that's what we all want-a "forever" bond. Really, marriage is a perfect concept: Two individuals become partners, best friends, and allies for the rest of their days. While our society tends to idealize the lust-love of a new relationship, it's the true love of a long-term, committed relationship that is the ultimate dream for most of us. I hope this book will help couples realize that even during difficult times love creates bonds that will strengthen them in ways beyond those they could have only imagined when newly married. Within these pages, you'll find an inspiring blueprint of the richness yet to come.
Forever in Love follows the path from "Attraction" to "Mature Love" and many stages in between. It's a book that will allow couples to reminisce about earlier years together and look forward to the days to come.
My hope is that you will be moved, awed, and astonished by the kaleidoscope of feelings so eloquently expressed by the contributors to Forever in Love. The poets represented here have a fine gift for the interplay of words and emotions about the voyage through love and marriage. -June Cotner