In Praise of midlife love -- is that a thing?

Delivered to my email today from Poets.org, this love poem by Sarah Browning entitled "Praisesong." A contemporary poem about lovers in midlife -- how refreshing. Here are the first seven lines:

"Praisesong" 

by Sarah Browning 

At the coffee shop you love,
white mugs heavy on the table
between us, young baristas—
spiky haired and impatient—
cannot imagine how two people
so old to them can feel so wanton,
coffee growing cold between us,
middle-aged bodies growing hot
under the other’s gaze. Even now, 

Anyone over 40 knows that seeing poems, movies, and romance novels about mature lovers is far too uncommon. Even more rare are romantic narratives in which one partner is a woman in midlife or an older age group. Fiction in which some man over 40 finds a woman in her 30s or 40s who loves him are much easier to find. Is that because it's also more common in real life. Still, I wonder sometimes that perhaps not only do younger people avoid stories about older people in love but older people also don't care to read or see such stories.

Humans like to identify with their fictional heroes and heroines. Is it possible that as much as we in the AARP crowd like to complain about a dearth of stories about people like us that we, too, don't want to identify with lovers over 40? Is it that we don't want to imagine wrinkled bodies in passionate embrace?

I don't see many romance novels marketed to people over 40. On the other hand, I don't look for them regularly, and I wouldn't want to read anything as formulaic as those I read in my youth. When I was young and dumb, I could suspend belief much more easily than I can now.

In any case, the movie and book Our Souls at Night as well as the Netflix series Grace and Frankie are doing well. And I think Nora Roberts may have a few books with older heroines. There was also the series the Hot Flash Club by Nancy Thayer. I wish she had written more of that series. The women were real and the stories were both poignant and amusing.

My commentary here is based purely on personal observations. I should probably research this topic to see if my intuition proves accurate.

Southside with You: Obamas' love story opens this month

I was so deep in the academic hole for the first six months of the year that I completely missed news about the movie Southside with You, the story of Michelle and Barack Obama's romance. The film pays homage to the president and First Lady's initial courtship and opens in limited release August 26. I.must.see.this.movie. So, I'll be scouting websites, Twitter, creating a Google alert, whatever I can do so I can't miss the film when it comes to New Orleans.

Produced by singer/songwriter John Legend and written and directed by Richard Tanne, the movie premiered with good reviews at the Sundance Festival in January. Based on the trailer, I'll say it's a winner already.

I remember one of the first times I heard a story about the first couple's courtship and said, "Sounds like a romance novel or a romantic comedy." I believe at least one of those times I was watching the Oprah Winfrey Show. Their love story made me happy because we don't hear enough, read enough, or see enough stories about healthy, black, romantic relationships.

Tika Sumpter, a young actress who became much more visible after appearing in Tyler Perry's soap opera on OWN, makes a wonderful Michelle Obama based on what I see in the trailer. I don't know much about Parker Sawyers' work (He plays Barack.), but I do recall him in The Assets TV show. He also is believable in the trailer.

The first couple was not consulted about the making of the film, but according to Tanne, they're aware of it, are excited about the movie, but "baffled by its existence." In a Vanity Fair interview, the writer/director says he gathered all his information from public domain sources, probably the Oprah show and other interviews with the Michelle and/or Barack. He thinks his script is mostly accurate. From what I 've seen, he's caught the warmth and humor of the stories as I recall them.

I've already subscribed to Fandango news to make sure I get a ticket. I mean, Southside with You better show here.

Woman found with heart missing in time for Valentine's Day (Video)

Just in time for Valentine's Day, a not-so-happy love poem for all those who are a little sad this day because they know how love can take a bite out of a person's heart. No, that does not feel very good, does it?

From the Lost Love News: Woman found, heart missing

New Orleans, Louisiana - On Wednesday night NOPD officers entered a home in the 900 block of Love Struck Lane and discovered a ghastly scene. A woman, now identified as the poet Nordette Writes, lay in a pool of blood. Her heart was missing.

It's incredible, but when paramedics arrived, they discovered the poet still alive. "It's impossible!" said Dr. Harland Cousteau of Wilde Maladjustments Hospital, "This woman should be dead. No one has ever survived without a heart."

Police spokesperson Roderick Joseph said officers were called to the scene after a neighbor reported loud wailing coming from the woman's little shotgun home. Writes came to, according to officers, swearing that a lion in man's clothing had disrupted her entire life.

"She says he'd been coming to spend times with her for weeks," Joseph reported. "He romanced her and promised to protect her, but without warning he gobbled her heart whole right out of her chest."

The refused to speak directly with Lost Love News, but a nurse at the hospital who prefers to remain anonymous said she overheard Writes tell a priest that the man was not only a lion but also another poet.

A neighbor, Miss Hester Prynne, said she has not seen any lions in the neighborhood, however, "Ms. Nordette has been entertaining a tall, dark gentlemen. He has a deep, sexy voice and is very polite. But I never caught his name."

"Saints preserve us!" Sister Mary Francis Benedictine told us. She ministers to the hopeless at the hospital. "We've never seen anything like it. It's a miracle," she said.

Dr. Cousteau said he'd hardly call it that, and he refuses to believe the patient's lion story. "Somehow we are being fooled. It's some kind of illusion, and I will get to the bottom of it, I assure you. There are so many ways to trick us now with technology."

His colleague, Dr. Jung said he believes Writes is suffering from shock and is confused, "She's in what we call a fugue state. With proper treatment, we may bring her back to sanity, and she may even grow a new heart."

Writes remains in her room, resting comfortably but is emotionless, according to the anonymous nurse.

"It's all very puzzling," said Joseph. "Very puzzling indeed."

Break Up Notes: The Recovery Edition

No, I have not recently broken up with anyone. This is one of my old poems that I had removed from the Web, but I discovered a few weeks ago that someone posted it in a discussion forum about beauty in art apparently before I deleted it. Written in 2005, it's one of many poems that I wrote while trying to emotionally process my divorce as well as navigate the dating world (something I still don't do very well).

I decided since someone else appreciated the poem, perhaps it will comfort others. I've edited it based on what I've learned about poetry since then, and I also created this video, which is something I'm into lately.

If you appreciate this poem or you know of someone else who would appreciate it or who needs to hear it, please share this link. File these verses under love and recovery.

For Valentine's Day: A Lovely Love by Gwendolyn Brooks

A Lovely Love by Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000).

Unusual for me, but I decided to participate in the Poetry Foundation's Audio Poems for Valentine's Day promotion, and I've embedded my reading in this blog post. The poem I've chosen is also unusual as love poems go. "A Lovely Love" by Gwendolyn Brooks is similar to Shakespeare's "My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun." Just as Shakespeare wrote of a love who did not fit the stereotype of a physically beautiful love (a woman with cherry lips and flowing hair), Brooks writes of a love born in far less than idyllic environment. You'll find no garden or starry night there, no Star of Bethlehem or royalty attending either as appeared at the birth of Jesus, the perfect symbol of love for many.

I saw the Poetry Foundation article encouraging people to record love poems and felt compelled to do so. Valentine's Day, however, is not a holiday I get into. I didn't even pay close attention to it when I was married. Perhaps I didn't want to be disappointed if my former husband forgot about it and didn't acknowledge me.

Furthermore, in elementary school, Valentine's Day was a horrible day for me because there were some people who used the day not to say I love you, but to make sure I knew they didn't like me or others they deemed outcasts. If you've experienced, that then you know what I mean--the popular girl comes in with cards for a select few and makes a production of handing them out, which then makes those who didn't get one obviously rejected. I was never allowed to do that. My mother made me give cards to everyone, and she probably did that because she was an elementary school teacher and had noticed the nasty gestures at her own school.

In fact, I think my mother's spirit may be the reason I recorded a poem for the Poetry Foundation on SoundCloud. She loved Gwendolyn Brooks, and Valentine's Day is her birthday. She passed way in 2008, and I miss her.

If you'd like the the text for "A Lovely Love," here it is at this link.

Blessed Is the Pair of Lovers Who Works Through Dysfunction (Video Soul)

Marvin Gaye's song "Just to Keep You Satisfied" is one of the best tunes ever written about the break-up of a marriage. It's believable that these people were at one point in a loving relationship, and it also conveys the pain of leaving while knowing that leaving is all you can do.

I have a friend who tells me that people who were really in love still love each other on some level even when they part. Going by my friend's assessment then, when the song's speaker tells his estranged wife that if she ever needs him, he'll be by her side, he is revealing just how deeply he has loved her. He wants no harm to come to her. If she needs him, he'll be there to help her. That's the line that tells her what they had was real. He is a mature, loving man, not just someone who gave up when the going got tough. He left because he couldn't think of a way to solve the dysfunction in a relationship that's become too painful to bear.

If you've ever had anyone love you that way, then you've experienced having someone really love you. Those who did not love you that deeply were mere impostors, and how sad to discover that you were married to an impostor.

"Just to Keep You Satisfied" is both painful and beautiful, just the way true love or star-crossed love often seems to be. Too bad they couldn't work through the pain.

Blessed is the pair of lovers who can work through the dysfunction and stay together; they shall inherit bliss. That's the most romantic thought I've had in three years, I think.

The Real Thing About It: Peaceful Co-existence and More

I am still contemplating the capacity to love unconditionally. Here is my poem, not meant for literary magazines, but for all people in struggle for peaceful human co-existence: "The Real Thing About It."

It is a meditation.

"Give A Little Bit" Coca Cola Security Cameras Around The World (Touching Video w/Music)

Let's be thankful that in spite of wars, corruption, and violent crime, humans also do good things.

"Give a Little" bit, the song in the Coke commercial, was first recorded by Supertramp and written and composed by its co-founder Roger Hodgson. The commercial uses the version that Hodgson recorded with a children's choir.