Jeff Davis | Vent Section Manager

2/15/02

I've been writing poetry for a number of years. I don't claim to be incredible at it or anything, but I'm proud of the few love poems I've written. I try to follow several rules when constructing such pieces: avoid the abstract, don't state the obvious and don't ever, ever say "I love you" in the poem. My friends with the same talent are pretty good at writing love poems that don't make my skin crawl. But there's one institution, one American corporate behemoth whose poetry could provoke the regurgitation of my luscious Valentine's Day dinner: Hallmark.

I don't think people buy Hallmark love cards to expose the recipient to high literature but rather to bring a smile and some added warmth to his or her day. I like getting Hallmark cards, in fact. The person who gave it to me is expressing something to me in their own way, a quality that gets more blurry as each world within our world collides. God bless them for that. I love the gesture, but I always cringe a bit when I read the "love poetry" within if there is any. Be it romantic love or love from a best friend or parent, the writers Hallmark uses can't seem to write a decent love poem that doesn't sound like that terrible novel Britney Spears and her mother wrote.

This reminds me of a time in my high school English class where everyone was trying to write a poem for a class assignment. Someone had asked the teacher if the poem had to rhyme and Erick Heck, the class-clown said aloud, "The grass is green / I am mean / I have no spleen." I swear that's what nine out of ten Hallmark "love" cards sound like.

The humorous writers they have are pretty good most of the time with a light, dry humor. The religious cards often quote Scripture. Since the Bible and other such texts are beautifully written to begin with there's rarely anything in there that bothers me. But the "love poetry" just rubs me the wrong way, the way my old neighbor Emily would pet my cat the wrong way and she could never figure out why he didn't like it.

Shakespeare is possibly the best writer in history. But quit recycling his red roses and ocean eyes. Why doesn't Hallmark peruse the literary magazines of note and see who is writing some really different and powerful poetry? There are writers out there who could give Hallmark's "love" cards some new-found life and in turn it would put their words out in the open. A win-win situation.

One day I'll get over it. I suppose I'm just more annoyed than I should be at the continuing collapse of poetry's popularity in the sense of people going out and reading it. All this silly education will sometimes make me weed out what I deem to be good from bad. There will always be bad love poems but I wish people would quit plastering them everywhere on Valentine's Day!