[LINK] "60 years, for better or for verse"

[rfmcdonald]

Thanks to thebitterguy for linking to an article in today's Toronto Star, Noor Javed's "60 years, for better or for verse", which describes the 60 years' worth of Valentine's Day love poems that Canadian science fiction writer Phyllis Gotlieb has written for her husband.

The collection, which Calvin "squirreled away" over the decades, includes at least 60 poems written on scrolls, by typewriter, some even scribbled on the back of grocery lists. One is written like a bank statement: "Here's my annual accounting of my love for you," it starts. Another are the lyrics to a song, "Valentine Cowboy."

"It's been a lot of fun, in her writing them and me getting them," said Calvin, 87, a professor emeritus in computer science at the University of Toronto.

"It's a little too cute," said Phyllis, 81, going through some of the poems, which include sonnets, haiku, limericks and ballads.

One of the poems is receiving a more public viewing this Valentine's Day after it caught the attention of U of T English professor Ian Lancashire. A decade ago, he started a project to create a poetry database online. He happened across a poem Phyllis had written to Calvin in 1969, called "First Person Demonstrative," while editing a collection of poems she was trying to get published. He liked it so much he decided to add it to his Valentine's Day edition of the database.

"Initially, I didn't expect these to be any more than dashed-off verses, just private things I wrote," said Phyllis, a science fiction writer and poet.

But her poem resonated with Lancashire and he decided to feature it on the website. "I thought hers was the most honest, heart-rending and human of the love poems that I have read. I thought it was complex because it captured the shyness, the delight and the long feeling of a marriage that has gone on for 20 years."

Gotlieb's "First Person Demonstrative" is here.