Looking for Love Poems? Here Are 14 Modern Classics
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Love Poem Categories:
❤ Oldies but Goodies
❤ Self Love
❤ Divine Feminine Love
❤ Torch Love
❤ Spicy Love
❤ Family Love💟 10 More Contemporary Love Poems
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In 2023 we brought you 10 Contemporary Love Poems— and based on this listicle's continued popularity (as in the most loved article among our readers!) we are happily expanding the list to bring you 14 more modern love poems to celebrate February!
Why We Love Love Poetry
Erato is one of nine poetry muses, each dedicated to different genres of poetry, but I would claim poetry would be nothing without Erato. And I will say the same about love: there is no love without poetry. The juicy emotions, the spicy feelings, the universal pull keeps love on the tongues and finger tips of poets throughout time. And as much as love may be ever-enduring, it is also something we need to constantly express–a feeling we engage with viscerally to keep it fresh in our hearts and minds.
That being said there are all kinds of love, and we wanted to bring you a list as varied and wild as love itself. In this article we’ll take a look at love poems that explore the love that keeps us up at night, the love that gets us out of bed, the love we lost, the love we gained, the love from mothers and even…trees. These poems get into all the parts and fluids and squishy bits that makes love such a hot and juicy topic, so grab a drink, and let's get into it as these poets spill the tea.
1. Lucille Clifton
In “homage to my hips” Lucille Clifton shows us how to start and end a poem in a way that is both healing and sly. With an expert use of the exclamation point this poem is short, sweet, and whole heartedly makes its point. I would wager “homage to my hips” ranks among many modern day poet’s favorites. So even though we don’t have the privilege of Lucille Clifton’s presence on this earthly plane, I really can’t make a list without starting with this poem. This all-lower-case-letters poem eases the reader into a comfortable space with the narrator, like speaking to a best friend. The lower case “i” is particularly stylistic and in my opinion a trendsetting maneuver that can be seen rippling throughout the poetry culture in our current era. Because it is so iconic, and only 15 short lines, I’ve included the poem in its entirety:
homage to my hips
these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!
The succinctness of this poem makes its form almost paradoxical to its topic, and yet the way these lines satisfy a reader is so full and rich we know we have been treated to something special, letting our minds spin with pleasure.
2. Jack Gilbert
Jack Gilbert’s poem “Married” is another anchor poem for me. A haunting love poem I first encountered in a copy of Refusing Heaven gifted to me by a fellow poet way back in my college days, the lines pull at me still in the frantic way grief does. Though I was still just 20 years old, I was reeling with the loss of my sister and being away from my family in school; I struggled deeply with my own grief and loneliness. Though experiencing the loss of his wife, I immediately felt myself, my own loss in these lines in a way I felt recognized, which in my circumstance was a huge comfort. It is also a short poem, but cuts deep like a knife:
Married
I came back from the funeral and crawled
around the apartment crying hard,
searching for my wife’s hair.
For two months got them from the drain,
the vacuum cleaner, under the refrigerator
and off the clothes in the closet.
But after other Japanese women came
there was no way to be sure which were
hers and I stopped. A year later,
repotting Michiko’s avocado, I find
this long black hair tangled in the dirt.
The flip-side of love is oftentimes never knowing what changes are on the horizon. The title by itself is ambiguous in time, but immediately we understand this marriage is in the past and not in the present or future. Jack Gilbert bares his humanity in this poem—and with him our hearts can break.
3. Ocean Vuong
Now this poem went viral so you might have already read it but dang if it doesn’t deserve the attention it receives! In Ocean Vuong’s classic epistolary poem “Some Day I’ll Love Ocean Vuong,” the narrator speaks to himself. In moments of doubt and depression this is a poem I listen to as it works its magic of thoughtful affirmations. Struggle is visceral in this poem, and if you listen to Ocean Vuong read this poem aloud you can hear the weightiness, the heaviness, in his voice, manifesting a future in which he isn’t overtaken by the difficulties of his heritage:
Ocean. Ocean –
get up. The most beautiful part of your body
is where it’s headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world.
This is a poem I will listen to five or six times in a row, to just let the words wash through my body. I let the poem soak up into my skin, wrap myself up in it like a blanket. It gives me permission to have all of my big feeling and just sit with them and know that that is okay, that I am not the only one struggling to exist on this planet, just making it happen one word at a time.
4. Derek Walcott
Of course when I pitched this article to the TPL team I asked for recommendations on poems to include on the list, our director offered up her favorite love poem of all time. Derek Walcott’s “Love After Love” is such a perfect reminder that self love is an act of radical acceptance. When people say poetry is therapy, it is because of the power that poems can wield in our psyches. Between break ups and upsets and bad first dates and even good first dates, having this poem tucked in a purse or wallet or up on the vanity mirror provides a kindness of words to uplift your heart:
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,and say, sit here. Eat.
I love how this poem celebrates the night in. Just a little time for yourself to enjoy being yourself. No judgements, no witnesses, just a self reflection, a recognition of the self. Not just an acceptance but a sense of elatement in this quiet moment of just being yourself, by yourself, and being contented.
5. Diamond Ford
Now I was going to include “My Ex Boyfriend is a Dick Joke,” in which Diamond Ford expertly weaves her voice and humor with the realness of being a Black heterosexual woman. A part of her collection Mother Body it is one that drew me in immediately with that saucy title and remains with me between readings, but I decided I really wanted to feature digitally accessible poems in this article ANNND damn if listening to Diamond Ford read “Fat Girl Climaxes While Working Out at the Gym” didn’t get me all up in my feels!
I want my pussy to smell like gardenia. I want
my pussy to know I have loved it since the first time
I pried its smile into a lazy camera’s eye,
spied its abundance of pink—the trembling lip
of a conch shell or a tulip’s dazed and hazy hue—
and pussy, you are the only me I’ve loved regardless.
I mean if these lines don’t have you salivating for more I am not sure anything will. This is another poem I can listen to again and again as its fiery wit and quick lines deliver nuance and coyness and I keep discovering layers upon layers. Diamond Ford's confidence is contagious, and I am so glad to have gotten caught up in all this good-energy, good-feels poem.
6. Dorothy Chan
If you ever get a chance to hear Dorothy Chan read on stage you should run, not walk to the venue. But wear some cute shoes because this poet has style! A diva of the triple sonnet, you will wish she was serving up full blown crowns. But no doubt Dorothy Chan’s “Triple Sonnet Because Boy, You're Starstruck and I’m a Wonder" will have you fantasizing with bangers like,
And his lips go wild because I’ve just drank
bourbon—that extra tingle of tongue—
the red lipstick that gets him all messy,
gets me all messy again, gives me the halo
above my Cupid’s bow, and what’s it like
being in lust with a man and a woman
at the same time—
A scintillating sex positivity exudes in these lines and I happily lap it up! Dorothy Chan’s poetry is definitely the kind you can take to bed and lay next to your pillow, while the words whisper you softly to sleep. Expect droolstains and enjoy!
7. Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisnero’s “Full Moon and You’re Not Here” has all the mood and attitude one could ever want in a torch love poem. The scene is clear, the moon is full, and, well I won’t ruin the ending for you, no spoilers, but dang that last couple of lines! The sentiment is reminiscent of a love haiku where a lover is often longing for their partner separated perhaps by mountains or snow, the moonlight making them restless with lust. In this poem, however, it isn’t the snow or mountains keeping the narrator lonely:
Useless moon,
Too beautiful to waste.
But you, my Cinderella,
have the midnight curfew,
a son waiting to be picked up from his den meeting,
and the fractured marriage weighing on your head
like a crown of thorns.
The real life complications of a messy relationship bring drama and passion. Everyday life is woven in with grand images making the moon both “useless” and “Too beautiful to waste.” These lines put the narrator both in a close relationship with the moon and with her, “Cinderella,” who famously has to return home by midnight or be caught out in a lie. Though the story is clear, the voice of the narrator is speaking less to the reader as a “best friend,” and more to herself as a woman with needs.
8. Ilya Kaminsky
Ilya Kaminsky’s “Still Newlyweds” is one of my favorite love poems; well, these are all my favorites, but I think what makes this a startling choice is its placement in the collection, Deaf Republic, which is a book about war and exile, so to find this delicate, delightful poem depicting such clear joy brings a knowing heartbreak to this seemingly blissful moment of peace. The poem opens gloriously:
You step out of the shower and the entire nation calms–
a drop of lemon-egg shampoo,
you smell like bees,a brief kiss,
I don’t know anything about you—except the spray of freckles on your shoulders
Both the microcosm and the macrocosm of this poem balance each other perfectly as the narrator describes the beauty of his bride. This is a loving poem that directs the arc of the storyline in Deaf Republic, giving the characters their depth; though if you peek in the back of the book, as I often do, Ilya Kaminsky acknowledges that in fact, “All love poems are for Katie Farris.” Katie Farris being Ilya Kaminsky’s wife, IRL muse, and a phenomenal poet as well, and so it is her and her freckles we have to thank for “Still Newlyweds."
9. Jubi Arriola-Headley
This year the poetry community lost a dear, dear soul: Jubi Arriola-Headley. A friend of The Poetry Lab, we had the privilege to have him as a past instructor. It was a sweet and playful workshop, which was Jubi’s nature. He also invited his husband, who had never been in a workshop with Jubi, and this added a whole level of intimacy to that session. I will always be grateful for his time and presence. He was also an incredibly sexy poet who wrote a whole book called Original Kink (I mean, some real leather daddy quality there). One of the poems that gets me going is “Pleasure Insurrections III,” where banana slugs take on a whole new meaning:
I know you’ll call me a trickster – slick, as if
that’s an icky thing to be – but I swear on eachof my stifled desires, in my immediate last life
I was a banana slug. Skin the color of spun sunshine,ten inches long, where it counted; what
would you not give to be thus endowed? Yet
It is a premise that immediately entices and teases, both strange and wonderful. This poem reminds us why love is urgent, why it is important for us daily.
10. Natalie Diaz
Natalie Diaz is best known for her book When My Brother Was an Aztec, which centers on her brother and his addictions, but I discovered Natalie Diaz when she released her Postcolonial Love Poem, where I fell hard for “Waist and Sway”. I think of it as “the honey poem” because damn honey if “Waist and Sway,” doesn’t do it to me every time. A poem where the narrator gives themselves permission to love freely—
Wanting her was so close to prayer—
I should not. But it was July,
and in a city where desire means, Upstairs
we can break each other open,
the single blessing I had to give was Mouth—
so gave and gave I did.
—and permission to love generously. She takes us into her intimate life, trusts us to know her secrets, and brings her readers into her private love—and in sharing with us allows us to love also. This poem is a permission, an invitation, a reminder that love is both received but also importantly given.
11. Douglas Kearney
If you’ve been to one of my workshops you have probably heard me gush over Douglas Kearney’s wildly dynamic visual poems and his layered readings. Douglas Kearney is someone who really pushes at the physical boundaries of this container we call a poem. Both on the page and aloud my mind is constantly being blown by both his poetry and the way his technique reveals the possibilities of poetry itself. It is actually difficult to quote many of his poems because of how visually layered they are, palimpsests of a kind; stanzas will often overlap, coming from all sides of the page. Thankfully Douglas Kearney has made it easy for us to get into and share “I Wanna be Ur Lover (1979)”, an ode celebrating an era, Farrah Fawcett, and her iconic style:
the feather up and off
your shoulder—
an absence of pressure.
but the weight
of the guitar and the bass,
the synth and kit—
the all that was all you
ever wanted to do. the disco
video grain like a leopard skin
The intimacy of “your shoulder–” brings the narrator in direct conversation with Farrah and as readers we are also drawn into this intimacy. It is wonderful to be reminded we can address our poems to whoever we decide. Odes to past icons provide time capsules of feelings and the cultures we come from.
12. Cecilia Woloch
The questions we ask ourselves as we rewind past relationships is an all too familiar experience for those of us that have gone through breakups. In her poem “Anniversary” Cecilia Woloch brings the reader into the narrator’s regret, lines that hit the back of the throat in a way you can almost taste a bitterness,
Didn’t I stand there once,
white-knuckled, gripping the just-lit taper,
swearing I’d never go back?
Lines that go from sweet to sour in an instant the way only a love gone bad does. Another short poem with so much feeling before and after the few brief stanzas. Like Lucille Clifton’s poem there is the intimacy in the tone of this poem like we are speaking to a best friend, if not ourselves. This internal voice progresses within its own logic and momentum as the narrator struggles. The shape of this poem is similar to both Clifton’s poem and Jack Gilbert’s, but reveals an entirely different narrative arc as in just a few short lines we feel the weight of Cecilia Woloch’s love.
13. Maggie Smith
Another poem that had a well deserved viral moment is “Good Bones” by Maggie Smith. A poem about motherhood, the speaker navigates her own truths and the truths she wants for her children. The poem eases us into this conundrum with playful humor:
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children.
As the poem progresses, the real weight of the narrator’s worry becomes undeniable. The world is a scary place, full of dangers and delights, and one must guide one’s children through this reality knowing time will change the lessons given. In this poem Maggie Smith mothers us all in a way, by including us in this lesson.
14. Chen Chen
I personally cannot get enough of Chen Chen, and his poem published in this year’s Pushcart Prize keeps echoing in my mind. In his own words he tells us how he feels about love poems: “I love love poems—reading them, writing them (or trying to). I love the falling in love with language that happens with every poem (or so I hope for). I love the bold effort, the tender effort to say, to sing, and to listen more precisely and strangely. I love love poems for partners, friends, plants, waters, family, your own breath.”
Chen Chen describes his poem “All I Love” as “this weeeird, sort of dirty (?!) poem about trees (🌲).” and it is just such a cute, quirky, geeky poem where we can see the poet’s love for words shine,:
is you, & you
in the morning& both you’s
are trees
& both treespoems,
& the troems make me
dream
the spacing in this poem really is dreamlike, thoughts floating perhaps in the author’s mind as he wakes. The introduction of the word, ‘troems,” alerts the reader that we are in a singular world of the author’s making. The combination of inventiveness and spaciness give this poem an ethereal, sexy feel as the narrator wonders if these "troems" aren’t really just very tall exhibitionists.
Read “All I Love” in print in the Indiana Review Issue 46.2 and the Pushcart Prize or digitally on Chen Chen’s Instagram post.
Thanks for Joining Our Love Poetry Speed Date
This is just the tip of the…tiptop when it comes to the rich offering of love poetry available to explore as a reader. There is a vast wealth of poetry available—and thank goodness, because love is messy, and having each other’s wisdoms and warnings and encouragements and complexities can make all the difference. The love spectrum will continue to inspire poets worldwide, and we hope this list inspires you to try your hand at your own love poems!
This article was published on February 3, 2026. Written by:
