Poem of the Week: “She is my love” by Trevor Joyce

This week we are celebrating Valentine’s Day and the forthcoming publication of Volume IV of The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry with Trevor Joyce’s “She is my love.” The first lines of each stanza echo the language of traditional love poems, only to be subverted in the lines that follow. Through his manipulation of the reader’s expectations, Joyce replicates the vacillation between hope and disappointment within a failed relationship.

She is my love
      was most my misery
preferred for wasting me
      to her could cure

She is my fair
      would fast enfeeble me
not whisper for my going oh!
      or mind my grave

She is my dear
      nature’s accessory
wouldn’t reach a hand to hold my head
      lay me for gold

She is my why
      drops not a hint to me
heeds no true word
      spares no regard

Great is my grief
      too long this lingering
who most suspects me
      is all my love

—Trevor Joyce, The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Volume IV (2017)