How Did You Hurt Us? Let Us Count the Ways

So you’re tired of sickly sweet love poems and everything pink. If you feel something needs to be said about heartbreak, sadness and false hopes, “Bleeding Hearts: Love Poems for the Nervous & Highly Strung” (St. Martin’s Press) may be for you.

The book is a collection of tortured and neurotic poetry by famous poets, such as Maya Angelou, Charles Bukowski and D.H. Lawrence, as well as lesser-known victims of love. Alice Walker writes: “Never offer your heart to someone who eats hearts / who finds heartmeat delicious.” Ouch!

So why did author Michelle Lovric, who is perhaps best known for “Love Letters: An Anthology of Passion” (Marlowe & Co.; 1994), decide to combine these heart-wrenching works for publication during the blissful lover’s holiday season?

“Precisely because of the season,” Lovric said. “Being alone on Valentine’s Day is like being an orphan on Christmas. This book is for anyone who has ever waited by the phone or had dashed hopes. It’s black and angry in some spots, but it also makes you laugh.”