National Poetry Month: John Donne

When I first studied John Donne, I was told his poetry could be broken up into three types depending on when he wrote them. The first type of poem was that attempting to wildly seduce a young woman, such as "The Flea," a poem in which the poet tries to equate intercourse with a bug bite in order to lure a young virgin into bed. After he met and married his love Anne, Donne wrote highly erotic, yet devotional poems chronicling his love for her. After she died, Donne turned his attention toward God, loving God with the same passion, resulting in work like the Holy Sonnets. In truth, its not quite that clear cut, and a poem like "The Canonization" seems to eroticize the church, further complicating matters.

What is true is that with a list of poems that includes both minor classics like "Go and Catch A Falling Star," "Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God" and "To His Mistress Going to Bed" alongside essential classics like "Death Be Not Proud," "For Whom the Bells Toll" and "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," it is hard to go wrong with a good collection of Donne's works. Van Morrison didn't ask him to rave on for nothing.