poem of love after love

Love after Love
Derek Walcott (1930 - )

For anyone who has recently suffered a separation or unhappy relationship, this is perhaps the ideal Valentine’s Day poem. The poem explores the idea of learning to re-love one’s self after trauma and loss. The Caribbean poet and playwright received the 1992 Nobel Prize for literature and won the TS Eliot Prize for his book of poetry, White Egrets in 2011.

The poem ends:

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life