Please can you recommend some love poetry suitable for a 13yr old boy

[Miaou]

For his English assignment (he claims ) - no it is really.

He wants something modern, "not full of thees and thous" (his words!!)

Have nothing here in the library to offer him but thought some of you people might be able to recommend something (preferably without much/any sexual references/innuendos)

TIA!!

[JackieNo]

Not too hot on poetry, but how about this (not sure how the whole no capital letters thing will go down?):

EE Cummings - i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

[Marina]

Some of Wendy Cope might make him smile, Miaou!

[katyjo]

It is very modern but the world war 1 poems by Seigfred Sasson (apologies for spelling) are a bit more boylike. I learned the satires for my highers and I liked them, easy to say and learn plus a bit of history for your boy! X

[MrsBadger]

I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke?

John Hegley's 'A Declaration of Need'?

I need you like a novel needs a plot.
I need you like the greedy needs a lot.
I need you like a hovel needs a certain level of grottiness
to qualify.
I need you like acne cream needs spottiness.
Like a calendar needs a week.
Like a colander needs a leek.
Like people need to seek out what life on Mars is.
Like hospitals need vases.
I need you.
I need you like a zoo needs a giraffe.
I need you like a psycho needs a path.
I need you like King Arthur needed a table
that was for more than just for one.
I need you like a kiwi needs a fruit.
I need you like a wee wee needs a route out of the body.
I need you like Noddy needed little ears,
just for the contrast.
I need you like bone needs marrow.
I need you like straight needs narrow.
I need you like the broadest bean needs something else on the plate
before it can participate
in what you might describe as a decent meal.
I need you like a cappucino needs froth.
I need you like a candle needs a moth
if it?s going to burn its wings off.

[Miaou]

ooooh, thank you so much, I will print these off and pass them on to him

(Tis not my ds, it's a pupil at the school I work at, btw)

Any more suggestions very welcome!!

[Lio]

How about the Betjeman one about Miss Joan Hunter Dunn:

'A Subaltern's Love Song'

Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.

And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

(C) Sir John Betjeman CBE (28 August 1906 ? 19 May 1984)

[Marina]

Especially something from Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis which is of course the one set of her poems I don't have to hand...

[katyjo]

Sorry missed the love bit - Sorry!!

[JackieNo]

Douglas Dunn's 'Elegies' was written after his wife died - can't remember any specific poems from it though.

[Miaou]

Thanks everyone - I have picked out a few (including Flowers and After Lunch by Wendy Cope - thanks Marina!). Left work before you posted Lio, but I just knew there was a Betjamin one that I wanted, thanks, that's the one! Will pass that on to him tomorrow

[MrsBadger]

aha, Flowers is a corker!
Wendy Cope - eight out of ten adolescent boys prefer it

[sidsaucer]

You can hear this poem here: sonichits.com/video/John_Hegley/The_Martian

You'll notice are a few minor variations and additional lines. This song was apparently released by Hannibal Records on a 1993 LP, source: www.discogs.com/John-Hegley-Saint-And-Blurry/release/6339155

[Oblomov16]

These are great. Flowers and I need you, I particularly like. Both brilliant. Will tell ds1(12).

[fourcorneredcircle]

Jenny Kiss’d Me
By Leigh Hunt

Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss’d me.

[Jeelba]

'Broadcast' or even 'An Arundel Tomb' by Philip Larkin?

[Confutatis]

Douglas Dunn
Love Poem

LOVE POEM

I live in you, you live in me;
We are two gardens haunted by each other.
Sometimes I cannot find you there,
There is only the swing creaking, that you have just left,
Or your favourite book beside the sundial.