SLE Valentine's Poetry Contest Winners

And here they are, our three winners for our 2017 Valentine's poetry contest...

Three very different poems.  Thank you to all of you who entered, we appreciate the support.

First Prize Winner:

Written by shortfoxwife in dedication to her husband and beautiful children.

I'm sure this is something you have heard, 

"Love is more than just a word."

When I think about what love means to me, 

Its not about what I hear, its what I see.

My smiling husband, full of pride,

As he gives our son a piggy back ride.

It's singing songs on some old back road,

Living for today, no fear of growing old.

It's painting a picture with my little girl, 

And staring in awe at her cute, bouncy curls.

That ecstatic moment when your man takes a knee,

Promising to love you for an eternity.

Watching movies, making love,

Saying your prayers to The Man up above.

Next time you're brightening someones day,

Remember it's your gestures, not just what you say.

Second Prize Winner-

POEM by Sizzelle

What cliche betrays the heart of the needy, the timid, and the weak?

The silence of the bold is the passion I seek

Heart shaped bubbles and chocolate truffles, empty calories won’t fill the soul

And, if a diamond ring makes your heart sing,

Then you’ve sold yourself for a drop of gold

Oh the impetuousness of youth they say

But the grey and the restless also play

Little games on clever phones

The lucky lovers roll their bones

They turn and turn until the grave

Then gladly go their separate ways

I will not settle for fear of silence

Or tolerate the video violence

The games … the films that you adore

In which you are hero and I am whore

I pity those players trapped by your rules

I pity those brainwashed media tools

Who propagate the Book of Lies

‘Till all we trust withers and dies

They sell the roots of their family tree

For fifteen minutes on TV

My love is mine and all I need

My love is mine in words and deeds

My love is secret and I will not share her name

… For money or for fame

Third Prize winner:

To you  - by Laurel B

It was instantaneous

You blew my mind

How did it even happen?

But there you were

You wandered away a few times

I should have known better

I couldn’t let go as much as I tried

The magnetism was too much

Time went by

I loved you more and more

I tried leaving you

But our friend said you needed me

Then you left

I knew she existed

But it was supposed to have been me

You said we were soulmates

You were supposed to rescue me

But you went off and married her

Then you came back

How could you?

Our love was intense

Our love was ferocious

But was it all a lie?

Was it even real?

We called it a day, it was inevitable

The colour to life has faded

I think of you everyday

My broken heart is yours forever

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SL Enquirer Valentine’s Day 2017 Poem Contest

Whether it’s the memory of Love, Love that has stood the test of time, or the rush of young Love, that’s what we celebrate each February 14 on Valentine’s Day. What could be more romantic than to express through your own poetry about that special Love for your loved one to read (and for our readers). So it’s time to send us your poem about those tender feelings and romantic thoughts to our poetry contest.

Express your love – in 250 words or less and tell the metaverse what makes your Valentine special!

Write a poem about, or to your Valentine and submit it via email to lacy.muircastle@gmail.com or lanaijarrico@gmail.com

Be sure to include your avatar name and for whom (fiancée, spouse, parent, child, lost love, etc.) your poem is written.

2017 Prizes:

First prize is Linden$ 5000

Second Prize is Linden$ 2000

Third Prize Linden$ 500

Lanai Jarrico and Lacy Muircastle will select the winners.  Entries must be received by 12.30 pm SLT February 12, 2017. The winners will be notified on Monday, February 13, 2017. The winning poems will be published in the SL Enquirer on February 14, 2017.

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Be my Valentine - Lacy Muircastle reporting...

February 14 as a date became a day for love, and it was all thanks to Chaucer.

“Be my Valentine” - the word’s that make the heart beat faster and the world seem dreamier.  I remember at school (back in the day…) how we bought pink cardboard cut-out hearts and wrote a little messages on the back.  Then we’d wait in excruciating anticipation to see if we’d get a heart ourselves on the day.  It was always a successful fund raiser even if it left a few bruised souls in its wake.

 Chaucer the author of Canterbury Tales wrote a poem in 1382 entitled “Parliament of Fowles,” , the birds:

“Birds, take heed of what I say; and for your welfare and to further your needs I will hasten as fast as I can speak.  You well know how on Saint Valentine’s Day, by my statute and through my ordinance, you come to choose your mates, as I prick you with sweet pain, and then fly on your way.”

The popularity of Chaucer’s poem, which likely stems from a pre-existing general belief, at least in medieval England, that February 14 is the day when birds choose their mates, is what truly cemented the idea that Valentine’s Day is a celebration of romantic love.  This belief may have been recorded in medieval bestiaries, popular early books that compiled stories about animals, mythical and otherwise.  Never mind that not all birds mate for life.  Penguins do, as do geese and falcons.  But ducks, for instance, do not—yet the Mandarin Duck is a Chinese symbol for fidelity.

The first known Valentine Card, and reference to someone as a “valentine,” date to only a century after Chaucer’s popular poem.  On 14 February 1477, an English woman named Margery Brews wrote to her love, John Paston of Norfolk:

“Right reverent and worshipful and my right well-beloved valentine, I recommend me unto you full heartedly, desiring to hear of your welfare, which I beseech Almighty God long for to preserve unto his pleasure and your heart’s desire.”

Renaissance images of amorini (little love gods) or cherubic putti were also shaped by Classical images of Eros figures and contributed to the gorwing tradition. Of course, much of the Classical tradition of a winged Cupid or Eros – as seen above in the Romantic Era Cupid sculpture in the Louvre by Antoine-Denis Chaudet –  a prankster often shooting love arrows into unsuspecting humans has also been absorbed into modern Valentine’s Day imagery.

At the British Postal Museum, the first known heart-shaped card is preserved, a sheet of paper from 1790 that folds, origami-like, to literally break apart the painted heart-shaped exterior.  Outside, the card reads: “My dear the Heart which you behold/Will break when you the same unfold/Even so my heart with lovesick pain/Sore wounded is and breaks in twain.”  When the heart is “broken” open, one more line of text lies inside: “My dearest dear and blest divine/I’ve pictured here thy heart and mine.”  These antique valentines, from 1477 and 1790, do not sound so far removed from modern-day Hallmark cards.

The general heart-shape that we now associate with love and Valentine’s Day, which does not look much like a real human heart, may be found in Renaissance art, including Donatello’s relief sculpture, Miracle of the Miser’s Heart (1447-50), as Oxford professor Martin Kemp notes in his recent book Christ to Coke: How Image Becomes Icon.  A Catholic cult developed around the Sacred Heart around the Counter-Reformation.  A burning heart came to be associated with Catholic mysticism and the supernatural phenomenon of “incendium amoris,” the fire of love, in which a worshiper has an out-of-body experience (ex stasis, from which comes the term “ecstasy”) and literally becomes burning hot with spiritual love for God.

While variations on the heart image have been around for centuries, it was not until 1977 that the cartoon heart image was codified by designer Milton Glaser, as part of the “I (Heart) NY” campaign, wherein the heart-shape acts as a rebus, an image standing in for a word or idea.

This Valentine’s Day we hope your hearts desires come true.

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Want to Keep Your SL Relationship Alive? Coco Lierfatte reporting ...

Here's a Few Points from People Who Know First Hand.



Keeping a relationship going in SL isn't always easy, for a lot of people SL is an all you can eat buffet. So you need to  be able to know how to handle your relationship so it can work out. So here is some advice on how you guys can keep your SL relationships alive, I asked a simple question to everyone, what do you do to make your SL relationship work. Here is the advice people have responded with, and my own personal advice as well.

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