Roses are red, violets are blue: Exclusive Poems and Our Top 10 Books of Poetry for Valentine's Day

Roses are red
Violets don't stay
The sexiest characters
Are morally grey
Roses are red
The Darkling wears black
My love is as fierce
As a volcra attack.

Leigh Bardugo (@LBardugo)

Violets are blue
Give someone a book
And they'll sleep with you

Holly Black (@hollyblack)

Werewolves are fluffy
Bollocks to Twilight
I still love Buffy.

Christopher Brookmyre (@cbrookmyre)

Violets are blue
You like 70s muscle cars
I like Doctor Who
You like beetroot
I would feed it to horses
You like plain steamed things
And I like cheese courses
You run in races,
Love hunts, tents and hooks
I like indoor places
With fires, and books
No-one can say
Why we work as we do
We are just so different
Thing One and Thing Two.
But when all is gone and we are both long dead,
Rose red
We’ll still know the core and soul of us was true.
Boy Blue.

Jenny Colgan (@jennycolgan) 

Violets are blue
Angelina's taken
So you'll have to do.

John Connolly (@jconnollybooks)

 

Chris Ridell and Paul Stewart 

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Whether you’re faithful
I cannot construe.
Violets are blue
Roses are red
But if you are cheating,
Lover, you’re dead!

Lindsey Davis 

My violets appear red,
And I no longer fancy you,
I fancy myself instead.

Laura Dockrill (@LauraDockrill)

And various other colours
Violets are violet
If we're being specific.
(I believe it was this attention to detail that made you fall in love with me).

Matt Haig (@matthaig1) 

Violets are blue
A body can stray
While a heart stays true.

Sophie Hannah (@SophiehannahCB1)

Violets are purple
People just say they're blue
Cos rhyming's a hurdle.

Natalie Haynes

Violets are blue,
I’d rather be dead
Than stuck with you!

Erica James (@TheEricaJames)

Violets are blue
Why stop at one Valentine?
Love triangles give us two.

Lauren Kate (@laurenkatebooks)

Violets are blue,
but all flowers wither
just like my love for you *sadface*
(I think the *sadface* is very ee cummings)
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I only snogged Benedict Cumberbatch
because he begged me too.

Sarra Manning (@sarramanning)

violets are blue
I’m slightly adhesive
But I’ll stick to you.

Alexander McCall Smith (@McCallSmith)  

violets are blue...
romantic love is an ideological construct, but it's a beautiful ideological construct, and rooted, we all secretly believe, and fundamentally know, in the softest, sweetest, most hopeful part of our being. Plus, it's better than being alone and blankly masturbating into the Abyss. Although that can get a bit messy. Especially if it's the director's cut, the one with the giant waves and the threat of nuclear armageddon, and the bit where everyone thinks the baldy guy is dead, but he comes back to life because he's been saved by underwater aliens, but secretly it's because he's distraught without his ex-wife, and he believes fully in the power of, yep, romantic love. See. You can't get away from it. Even right now. There's a couple on the table opposite me. Japanese. And they're just kind of, well, hugging. Heads clunking together. No conversation. Just hugging. It's utterly beautiful. I could cry. No, wait. Hang on. She's got her phone out. Ah shit. Now she's texting. And he's watching her text. No. wait. Hold on. His phone has just gone. He's looking at it. She's looking at him looking at his phone. He's smiling. She's clearly just texted, Bluetoothed, or Airdropped a message, and he's looking at her, looking at him, looking at his phone, looking at the message she sent to him while he was looking at her, looking at her phone. I can't see, from here, exactly what she's sent, but I'm guessing it's something like, "I, like, totally love you, you are my life in every possible way, I can't breathe without you, and maybe we should turn off our f***ing phones and go back to clunking heads together, and stuff." Either way, I rest my case. Romantic love, like Derrida used to say about inherent narrative structure, is simply there, like life itself. You can't fight it. You can't deny it. But to hold onto it when you've got it, and to make it last, now there's a trick!"

Kevin Maher (@KevinTMaher)

Violets are blue,
Sugar is addictive,
I think you're brilliant.

Denise Mina (@DameDeniseMina) 

Violets are never really blue
Do you really need a national holiday
To remember to say, "I love you"?

Patrick Ness (@Patrick_Ness) 

violets are blue.
Mikey stared at the words inside the Valentine’s card and wondered why they made him feel hollow. Maybe it was because he was colour blind and had never liked flowers anyway. Plenty of much more exciting things were either red or blue: buses, post boxes, the ocean, and the sky. Why did love always get reduced to roses and violets? Mikey tore up the card with a sense of relief, and went into the kitchen to bake a chocolate cake for his girlfriend instead.

Kate Rhodes (@K_RhodesWriter)

Violets are blue,
I said it was me,
It was actually you.

Rainbow Rowell (@rainbowrowell)

violets are mauve,
my spelling's poor,
but I think I'm in loave.
Roses are Red,
so are your lips,
come to my house,
and I'll cook you some chips.
Roses are dark,
Violets are pale,
I'd like to date you,
when you get out of jail.
Roses are scentless,
Violets are smelly.
I want to go to your house,
and watch the telly.

Nina Stibbe (@ninastibbe)

Violets are blue
So please see
Frank O'Hara's 'Having a Coke with You'.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
So play me a love song
On my heart's kazoo.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I think you're sexy
I'm joining the queue.

Naomi Wood (@NaomiWoodBooks)

 
Thank you so much to all the authors who shared their poems.