Collection

Anti-Love Poems

For breakups, heartache, and unrequited love. More “screw Cupid” than “Be mine.”

Courtesy of Bored Now via Flickr

Many of us have looked for love in all the wrong places. We have dating apps, deal breakers, love languages, fear of missing out, date-night appointments, long-distance relationships, ghosting, emotional unavailability, conflict issues, couples counseling, fierce independence and co-dependence, not to mention record divorce rates and identity and political divides. Self-help books are a 12 billion-dollar industry that’s growing each year, and we’re all trying to figure it out. This selection of poems show the less idealistic side of love.

Breakup Poems

- The Glass Essay
  Anne Carson
- Movement Song
  Audre Lorde
- From the magazine:
  The Flurry
  Sharon Olds
- Love, I'm Done with You
  Ross Gay
- From the magazine:
  Cuckoldom
  BJ Ward
- After Eden
  Rachel Wetzsteon
- Oh God
  Michelle Tea
- Waiting for This Story to End Before I Begin Another
  Jan Heller Levi
- A Pity, We Were Such a Good Invention
  Yehuda Amichai
- From the magazine:
  Meditations in an Emergency
  Frank O’Hara
- ain't that easy
  erica lewis
- From the magazine:
  For a Traveler
  Jessica Greenbaum
- December
  Michael Miller
- The Darker Sooner
  Catherine Wing

Heartache And Vexed Love

- You left me – Sire – two Legacies – (713)
  Emily Dickinson
- From the magazine:
  “No, I wasn’t meant to love and be loved”
  Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib
- Semele Recycled
  Carolyn Kizer
- Endless Summer
  Nate Pritts
- Blues for Almost Forgotten Music
  Roxane Beth Johnson
- From the magazine:
  Still Start
  Kay Ryan
- Snowshoe to Otter Creek
  Stacie Cassarino
- From the magazine:
  Hour
  Reginald Gibbons
- History
  Aleida Rodríguez
- From the magazine:
  Semi-Splendid
  Tracy K. Smith
- Absences
  Donald Justice
- No Second Troy
  William Butler Yeats
- As from a Quiver of Arrows
  Carl Phillips
- From the magazine:
  What’s Left
  W. S. Di Piero
- Anniversary
  Louise Glück
- From the magazine:
  Fooled Me for Years with the Wrong Pronouns
  Gwyneth Lewis

Unrequited Love

- I Feel Horrible. She Doesn’t
  Richard Brautigan
- From the magazine:
  The Breather
  Billy Collins
- The Consolations of Sociobiology
  Bill Knott
- Sometimes with One I Love
  Walt Whitman
- Solitary Vice
  Valerie Wetlaufer
- A Bronze God, or a Letter on Demand
  Clifton Gachagua
- Nocturnal Admissions
  Chip Livingston
- Virginity
  Anna Swir
- Never the Time and the Place
  Robert Browning
- Poem
  Lucy Ives
- What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends
  Julian Talamantez Brolaski

Loneliness-love

- “Time does not bring relief; you all have lied”
  Edna St. Vincent Millay
- Dear One Absent This Long While
  Lisa Olstein
- I’ll Open the Window
  Anna Swir
- I Don't Miss It
  Tracy K. Smith
- Winter Love
  Linda Gregg
- The friend
  Marge Piercy
- Sonnet
  Robert Hass
- Rain
  Kazim Ali
- In Golden Gate Park That Day . . .
  Lawrence Ferlinghetti
- The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance
  Li Bai
- Such Is the Sickness of Many a Good Thing
  Robert Duncan
- Evening Lounge
  Afaa Michael Weaver

Screw Cupid

- From the magazine:
  What Isn’t Mine
  Jill Alexander Essbaum
- [Sonnet] You jerk you didn't call me up
  Bernadette Mayer
- The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator
  Anne Sexton
- Epithalament
  Brenda Shaughnessy
- From the magazine:
  from “An Attempt at Jealousy”
  Marina Tsvetaeva
- Modern Love
  John Keats
- Farewell Love and all thy Laws for ever
  Sir Thomas Wyatt
- Song: “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more”
  William Shakespeare
- A Fixed Idea
  Amy Lowell
- Never give all the Heart
  William Butler Yeats
- From the magazine:
  To the Man Who Shouted “I Like Pork Fried Rice” at Me on the Street
  Franny Choi

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:The Flurry

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:Cuckoldom

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:Meditations in an Emergency

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:For a Traveler

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:“No, I wasn’t meant to love and be loved”

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:Still Start

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:Hour

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:Semi-Splendid

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:What’s Left

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:Fooled Me for Years with the Wrong Pronouns

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:The Breather

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:What Isn’t Mine

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:from “An Attempt at Jealousy”

poetry-magazineFrom the magazine:To the Man Who Shouted “I Like Pork Fried Rice” at Me on the Street

From the magazine:
The Flurry

From the magazine:
Cuckoldom

From the magazine:
Meditations in an Emergency

From the magazine:
For a Traveler

From the magazine:
“No, I wasn’t meant to love and be loved”

From the magazine:
Still Start

From the magazine:
Hour

From the magazine:
Semi-Splendid

From the magazine:
What’s Left

From the magazine:
Fooled Me for Years with the Wrong Pronouns

From the magazine:
The Breather

From the magazine:
What Isn’t Mine

From the magazine:
from “An Attempt at Jealousy”

From the magazine:
To the Man Who Shouted “I Like Pork Fried Rice” at Me on the Street