Passionate Hearts: The Poetry of Sexual Love: An Anthology

The finest collection of emotion I have ever read. Not a book for the souls who love simply, but for the souls who simply love. This book has the power to evoke your deepest threads. It was a gift I opened for the first time while waiting in a long line at the post office. By the time I reached the counter, I was in tears. This book is a must for passionate couples, or couples who would like to taste what the few of us have. Love you, L.

There are so many books on sex these days. This one is truly stands out. I can't wait to share it with my wife. I would recommend it to all my married friends. This book is erotic but does not revel in its own obscenity. Too many of the genre pretend to kindle passion but instead singe the reader with an acrid backdraft of vulgar language and demeaning images. I wouldn't wish the experience of these other books on an enemy much less feel comfortable sharing them with someone I loved. The experience of sex deserves better. With warm and thoughtful explicitness, this book delivers. This is a poetic sex book. Other books speak the dry, clinical language of psychology, with a altrustic but patronizing accent. They speak a language so foreign to lived sexual experience that they may be accurate but they can never be truthful. Poets tell truths about sex that scientists (or religionists clothed in scientific frocks) never could. (I was pleased too that the editor felt no need to explore the dark and painful sides of sex so common to other anthologies of poetry). Another sort are sexual catalogs. Full of glossy images of beautiful people, perfectly lit, they tease their readers with cotton-candy potential and deliver cotton-candy nourishment--for individual and couple--typically in two-sentence paragraphs that master only the obvious. By comparsion, this book is like sweet bread. Plain to the eyes, perhaps, but with a warm, syrupy, sensual sweetness that nourishes at the same time it delights. As with the best sex, after the pretty images and sensual delights evoked by these poems fade from memory, there is a significance that lingers.

Half-sleeping, my body pulls toward yours- desire a long oar dipping again and again in this night's dark rain. ~jane hirshfield The poems in "Passionate Hearts" are based on mutual caring and respect. They are about heart-connected sex and evoke vivid images of warm loving relationships. This truly is a celebration of the moments of beauty in the sexual experience. I love the way Natasha Josefowitz describes herself as a violin and how Robert Wrigley talks about painting his lovers skin with invisible roses. There are beautiful metaphors mixed in with bolder expressions of the real-life experience. I started reading the poems and within a few hours I had read the entire book. Each poem was filled with such mystery and beauty. I noticed they were arranged from the excitement of new love to the experience of finding time for sex when you have a family and then the book ends with poems about the autumn of love. If you are inspired by the universal experience of poetry and enjoy the mysteries of sexual love, these poems provide a healthy look at sexual intimacy. ~The Rebecca Review

I have to admit to being very picky. I went looking for a book that was explicit yet tasteful. I wanted something that was definitely erotic but not vulgar. This book more than lives up to my expectations.Not all poems are sexually exciting but there are enough that are an exquisite turn on, that I wouldn't think of getting rid of this one.What's best is that my wife, who also has no taste for the profane, has found this book a true pleasure. If you are looking for graphic details of wild sexual fantasies, this book is not for you. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a classic, honest, heartfelt celebration of sexual love, you will enjoy this one.

This book was astounding. The words, the space, the whole thing was utterly amazing. This is the only book I've found that actually makes me sexually aroused when read aloud, and my partner agrees - it makes him so hard! This book has done wonders for our sex-life, and I owe it all to Wendy Maltz. Forever-thanks.