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Poem-a-Day - "I, Lover" by Elsa Gidlow

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June 20, 2021 

I, Lover
Elsa Gidlow

I shall never have any fear of love, 
Not of its depth nor its uttermost height,
Its exquisite pain and its terrible delight.
I shall never have any fear of love.

I shall never hesitate to go down
Into the fastness of its abyss
Nor shrink from the cruelty of its awful kiss.
I shall never have any fear of love.

Never shall I dread love’s strength
Nor any pain it might give.
Through all the years I may live
I shall never have any fear of love.

I shall never draw back from love
Through fear of its vast pain
But build joy of it and count it again.
I shall never have any fear of love.

I shall never tremble nor flinch
From love’s moulding touch:
I have loved too terribly and too much
Ever to have any fear of love.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 20, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“I, Lover” originally appeared in On a Grey Thread (Will Ransom, 1923).
Elsa Gidlow, born on December 29, 1898, was a poet and philosopher. Her book, On a Grey Thread (Will Ransom, 1923), is believed by historians to be the first collection of openly lesbian love poetry published in North America. Her autobiography, Elsa: I Come With My Songs (Booklegger Press, 1986), was the first lesbian autobiography not published under a pseudonym. She died on June 8, 1986. 
On a Grey Thread
(Will Ransom, 1923)
“On the Road to the Sea” by Charlotte Mew
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“At a Dinner Party” by Amy Levy
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Thanks to Anaïs Duplan, author of Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a Q&A about Duplan’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year. 
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