Roses are red/ violets are blue/ here is a post/ just for you

One of my very first associations of poetry was that it was for talking about love. By first, here, I mean the way I thought about it when I was young, when I was first encountering poetry. And at this point, I definitely mean the “roses are red/ violets are blue” type of verse, or the sort that you find in greeting cards. I’m guessing there was a school assignment that was part of it – write a love poem for your Valentine, maybe? – but I don’t remember exactly. Still, it stuck in my mind: one way to tell someone you loved them was to write them a poem.

I also remember reading and liking Shel Silverstein and Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost in second grade, so I also knew early on that there were other things poetry could do. But still, the association goes deep.