A Valentine salute
published: Friday | February 14, 2003
Desmond Henry
TREASURE BEACH:
IN MY ten years of writing a regular column for the Gleaner it has dawned on me that I
have not done a piece on the social and cultural practice of Valentine's Day. In fact, I've done pieces on Christmas, Easter and Nine-Night, all from a rural perspective. But never Valentine. With this year's Valentine's Day coinciding with the day on which I'm published, it struck me that I could no longer remain partial. And so I've decided to do a Valentine collective, but from a somewhat different perspective.
Not too many know of one of my hobbies as a writer of poetry. It began way back from my days at Cornwall College, where as part of our language development, we were encouraged to use creative descriptions as part of our communicative imagery. We had a superb teacher of English who taught us how to use phrases as conveyors of pictures and moods. I expanded on that during my formal journalism training by a professor who encouraged us all to write in what he termed "conversational style." This has helped tremendously in my poetry writing in painting images and forms.
Truth is, that over a span of some 30 years I've written in excess of 130 poems and verses, reflecting mainly on what I've termed 'Love and Life'. They are mostly soft and fragile in nature. My intention is to formally publish them all, around next year's Valentine's Day under the title of 'Reclining on Cobwebs'. The title itself coincides with their overwhelming characteristic of tenderness and genteel softness. Indeed in my introduction, I describe them as "a distillation of moods, an accumulation of tones". I rather like them, and thought that I would dedicate a few samples to this year's Valentine's Day in the spirit for which the day is celebrated.
