On Love: Poems

by Rita Baker

The primary focus of many of the poems in this volume is about love and a lot of them are as a result of the 55 year passionate affair I experienced with my husband. He passed away in 2009. The romantic poetry gives expression to my observations and feelings on and towards love before I was married, throughout our marriage, and since his death.

I hope the poems do for you what they have done for me. It's music for my soul, a rhythmic beating of a drum for my heart. I'm most happy when lost in the charm and wonder it provokes.

A number of different styles of poetry are incorporated within this body of work. The poetry touches on many different emotions - love especially, but also fear, despair, longing, hope, joy, and wonderment. I have endeavoured in this collection to give you all I can of me, for, in the end, nothing is worth something unless you give it your all.

I'd love to know which poem or poems affected you the most and why. What was your favourite style? Till then, please enjoy

133 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 5, 2021

About the author

I am a Canadian writer with a British background and was married to a British lawyer and have two wonderful sons. I was raised by unorthodox, free thinking, grandparents from whose example I exerienced the liberty of an all embracing open mind.
I shall not bore you with my credentials; it is enough to say that I was well educated in England and at college I won prizes for writing speeches, as well their delivery.
May passion is the novel. I love bringing to life strong characters together with vivid descriptions of unusual people and places I have come to know, coupling them with meaningful dialogue as in my novel OF BONDS AND BONDAGE which is about relationsships, some very nasty, between those in the legal profession I grew up reading writers such as Maugham, Wilde, Dickens, Austen and Bronte, to name but a few. Today I enjoy authors whose work depicts the times we live in, be they of a legal profession, mystery or a good, strong, unusual love story that tears at your heart strings.
I have been an actress all my life --wasn't it shakespeare who said 'all the world is a stage and we the players on it.'

Reviews

[John Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rita Baker's "On Love" is unapologetically accessible and narrowly focused--and it works, delightfully. The title of this wonderful book of poetry is self-descriptive but inside, there is so much more than love. A meandering literary journey through not just the emotion, On Love takes the reader on day trips to places other than the heart because, after all, love touches so many aspects of our existence.
At times On Love feels like a tribute to "him", one who has passed but lives on in the heart so strongly that perhaps this book was borne of the strength of that relationship. It feels as if the tribute gives "On Love" a real reason to exist and separates it from a plethora of works, the sole reason for the existence of which is an attempt to describe an emotion. On Love is so much more than that.
My favorite poem in the book was If I Fail To Hear: "There are as clouds / In the sky / Drifting towards that / Unknown place in my mind / That surfs through the muddle / Of life's iniquitous / Bundle of inconsequential / Matter that eventually / Comes to rest / At my feet...
I highly recommend On Love for those who appreciate emotive poetry, and for anyone else who likes to put their feet up on a lazy Sunday afternoon with an uplifting, heartwarming book.