Love makes the world go round, and it’s obvious to say that in one way or another it’s the foundation of much or even most literature: first love, adultery, lust, forbidden pleasures, star-crossed lovers. Consider how love features as a defining component of so many stories and poems.

For this week’s writing experiment, which falls on Valentine’s Day, simply write something that’s unabashedly about love. Maybe a Valentine serenade for your loved one, or a scene in which two lovers meet for the first time, or a stretch of dialogue that reacquaints long-lost lovers, or maybe a sequence of erotica in which two (or maybe more?!) characters fuck each other’s brains out.

That was it, originally, but that’s quite an open-ended brief. So if you want to make this more interesting, introduce a constraint: make/imagine one or both (or all!) of your lovers blind.

Find some inspiration among these poems listed at the Poetry Foundation. I particularly relished the bit in this feature on Queer Love Poems that mentions the ‘ancient rowdy randy perverse pagan literary tradition’ taught at the Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics.

Be randy, be romantic, be loving.

Happy Valentine’s Day!