Love’s labours cost €50 to get poetry in motion

HOW do I love thee? Or, at least, how many ways can I dream up of telling thee that I love thee, even if thee couldn’t care less?

And, oh yes, how can I make it rhyme?

It isn't easy being a red-hot lover these days, but take heart, help is at hand for those with a penchant for penning a love poem. Next Saturday, the Munster Literature Centre hosts a day-long seminar and workshop for love-sick romantics.

Ideally, of course, love poems should be composed in an appropriate setting. Frank O'Connor House in Douglas Street, Cork, venue for 'The Contemporary Love Poem a pre-Valentine's Day Workshop and Seminar', may not exactly be what the muse had in mind. Better to be sloshing on a heart-shaped water bed within roaring distance of Niagara Falls, or singing your undying love from beneath the Pont-Neuf in Paris.

But, even if the nearest you ever got to composing a love poem was scribbling a few lines after hours among the slops of the bar counter, this seminar could do your love life the power of good, even if it doesn't come cheap. It costs 50 a pop for the seminar, run by the head of the Munster Literature Centre, Patrick Cotter, and, considering that a dozen red roses will set you back about €60, it means you will need at least one deep pocket.

You will also need a lot of imagination. According to the Munster Literature Centre, the seminar will explore "the historical development of the love poem ... with reference to recurring themes and perennially successful formats".

It doesn't exactly set the heart racing, does it? Still, you have to start somewhere, so if you happen to be stuck for words, who do you cog? Should it be a Shakespearean sonnet or something by Elizabeth Barrett Browning or the Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda? Too obvious. Better to go for a lesser known name, like Sappho, one of the great Greek lyricists and few renowned female poets of the ancient world, or the prolific contemporary Indian poet Nikhil Parekh, whose frenzied marathon musings on love and lust fill the internet.

Men, especially, need a lesson in love. Don't forget to work up a head of steam, guys. You cannot expect to be Don Juan if the only thing that makes your blood boil is the phone bill. Don't ever suppose either that the object of your affection would be upset by a love poem.

Don't be fooled by remarks like: "Oh, you crazy eejit. A poem in parchment and a box of Ferrero Rocher and there was I thinking you were just checking on the cows in the hill field."

She will be thrilled to think you had gone mad and mad to think you hadn't.

Better again, why not go along with your lover and you can write a poem together?

Despite being at one with the object of your affection, you will still be expected to cough up for two, but the result might just give the term 'rhyming couplet' a whole new meaning.

The seminar runs from 10am to 4pm. To sign up, telephone [phone] or email [e-mail].