Creative Writing
Write a Non-Romantic Love Poem
A journal prompt and creative writing exercise for poets
Most of us who write poetry have written a love poem or two (or many more!). We generally think of love poems as an opportunity to declare our love for a romantic partner, maybe because we hope to start a new relationship, or maybe to express our feelings about someone we’ve been involved with for a long time.
In our lives, we experience many different kinds of love, such as love for our family members and friends. Reflecting on these many loves, I’d like to invite you to try something new: write a poem about a love other than romantic love.
Loving Our Neighbors
If we reflect on different definitions of love, beyond the romantic, we might realize that in addition to our close family and friends, we love other people in our daily lives, like our coworkers and neighbors.
What about the checker at the grocery store who always makes your daughter smile? What about the barista who knows you like your latte with oat milk and who warms up your scone without you asking?
We can also write about our love for people who are no longer in our lives, maybe because we lost track of each other over time or maybe because they passed away.
Do you think it’s possible to feel love for someone you’ve never met in person, like an actor whose performances bring you to tears, or a writer whose words feel like they could have come from your heart?
Loving Animals, Places, Experiences, and More
Many of us have a deep love for animals, like our current and former pets. We might also love animals in a broader (maybe even spiritual) way; I know I feel this love when I see pictures from animal sanctuaries I follow on social media.
We can also love places, from entire cities to small and specific locations like a spot in our own backyard. We can love plants and trees. We can love foods and remembered experiences and treasured objects and songs and sweaters and shoes and…!
We can love our faith, or we can love our uncertainty or doubt. We can love God or the Source or the Universe. We can love mystery and nothingness. We can love nameless, wordless moments that extend beyond ourselves.
Writing Exercise
Open your journal and freewrite for ten minutes to make a list of who and what all you love. List as many people, animals, places, things, etc that come to mind. Start with family and friends, and expand from there.
Then, the next time you sit down to write a new poem, choose someone or something from your list, and try writing about love in a platonic/non-romantic way.
My last suggestion is that you describe your subject lovingly but without using the word “love” at all. Convey the feeling through your descriptions so that the reader can find the lovable qualities you recognize in your subject.
This poem can offer great practice in showing instead of telling — rather than tell us that you love this person/animal/place/etc, try to show us through your choice of words, images, examples, and details.
If you end up writing a non-romantic love poem, please let me know! If you like writing exercises for poetry, journaling, and more, please check out my other articles, such as my prompts for writing about the pandemic. I also post my own poems and personal essays here on Medium.
