Your poems can be pissed off and cynical

(a new poem: LIKE THE REST OF MY GENERATION I LEARNED ABOUT LOVE)

Sometimes I write poems about love that ooze spring and hope and other cinematic sap. Like In The Garden or Walking With You In April. And don’t get me wrong—I love my love poems, and I hope you do too. I hope my reader prints them out and gives them to their partner and they both cry and cuddle and remember the words when they fight, reining them back into the irrational coral of first affections.

But life is also depressing and hard and certainly going to kill you, and poets (even the ones with an Instagram presence) don’t have to pretend otherwise.