For The Love of Poetry

John Butler-Hopkins' For the Love of Poetry opens, appropriately enough, with a sequence of poems about romantic love in all its aspects: the dizzying ecstasies of infatuation and first love, then the brutal lessons of rejection and betrayal, and finally the discovery of a soul mate and the development of a true, long-term relationship. By contrast, the book's second half is concerned with the tragedy of young men going to fight in the First World War. Within this, the section 'The Lost Letters' combines the subjects of love and war as a soldier and his lover share memories of happier times while they live through the horrors of their current situation. If you love to read about deep and powerful human-centred emotions, this is a book for you.