Product Description

Following on the success of Passionate Hearts, Wendy Maltz continues her celebration of healthy sexuality with a new anthology of 121 poems that turn up the heat. Through some of the richest, most celebrated poetry ever written, Intimate Kisses revels in life's greatest mystery and breaks through negative cultural messages that what feels good must be bad, or that only second-rate erotica can excite.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #270242 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781577314455
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
Peeling An Orange by Virginia Hamilton Adair
Begin In The Night by Abigail Albrecht
Nesting by Abigail Albrecht
Night Of Blue Stars by Abigail Albrecht
Thirst by Linda Alexander
The Ninth Secret Poem by Guillaume Apollinaire
A Simple Pleasure by Joseph H. Ball
Sometimes, After Making Love by Ellen Bass
Entry June 12 by Walter Benton
Entry October 26 by Walter Benton
Bacchanalia by J. B. Bernstein
Myth by Jonathan Blake
Aurora Leigh, Sels by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
In A Gondola, Sels. by Robert Browning
The Smallest Blue Veins by Neil Emmanuel Carpathios
Love & Desire by Elizabeth Claman
O It's Nice To Get Up In, The Slipshod Mucous Kiss by Edward Estlin Cummings
Swans' Song by Elizabeth Dalton
Fire by Lucille Day
Wild Nights - Wild Nights! by Emily Dickinson
The Night The Children Were Away by Stephen Elliott Dunn
Awakening by Gayle Eleanor
Public Affection by Emani
At The Kitchen Counter by Jay Farbstein
Making Love by Walt Farran
Just Before Seventy by Rusty Fischer
Morning by Maureen Tolman Flannery
Tell Me by Carolyn Flynn
Time To Embrace by Michael Foster
Gravity by Rick Fournier
I Love Being Lost by Karen Garrison
Lastnight, After We Made Love by Danusha Lameris De Garza
The Butterfly by Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
I Want To Sing by Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
That Day by Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
The Shape Of Brightness by Laura K. Gourlay
Where I Go After Sex by John Grey
Come With Me To Our Sweet Bed by Penny Harter
Night Poem by Penny Harter
In Your Hands by Jane Hirshfield
The Gateway by Alec Derwent Hope
Armfuls Of Summer by Kathleen Ann Iddings
The Dance by Robin Jacobson
Black Water by George Keithley
It by Leatha Kendrick
The Night by Galway Kinnell
After New Hampshire by Rosemary Klein
Apricots And Figs by Edward Kleinschmidt
Your Tongue by Edward Kleinschmidt
Horizons by Barbara La Morticella
2 Am by Dorianne Laux
Afterwards by Dorianne Laux
Seamless Beauty by Wendy Lee
All That Wet by Diane Q. Lewis
A Moment by Abraham Linik
On A Night Of The Full Moon by Audre Lorde
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Ewan Maccoll
And Sunday Morning by Christian Mcewen
Kiss by Corey Mesler
Descending by David Meuel
Finishing Touches by David Meuel
The Outpouring by David Meuel
Ten Years Together by David Meuel
What Makes It Good by David Meuel
Listener by Joseph Millar
Cornfield by Gail Morse
I Give You My Tongue by Patrick Mulrooney
Afterword by Ginger Murchison
Creation by Dara Prisamt Murray
Full Summer by Sharon Olds
I Cannot Forget The Woman In The Mirror by Sharon Olds
I Love It When by Sharon Olds
Last Night by Sharon Olds
Skinsong by Trudi Paraha
Spilling by Trudi Paraha
Whaia I Te Po by Trudi Paraha
Axis by Octavio Paz
Lightning At Rest by Octavio Paz
Touch by Octavio Paz
Bio Logos by Molly Peacock
Shaving Night Sonnet by Debra Pennington
Bones by Roger Pfingston
A Good Afternoon by Roger Pfingston
Occasion by Roger Pfingston
Little Acts Of Love by Marge Piercy
The Real Hearth by Marge Piercy
Wet by Marge Piercy
Alicante by Jacques Prevert
On Entering The Sea by Nizzar (nizar) Qabbani
This Night Only by Kenneth Rexroth
Oh Yeah by Charles Rossiter
Spring Overall. But Inside Us by Jelaluddin Rumi
Spring Paints The Countryside by Jelaluddin Rumi
The Ordinary Day Begins by June Sylvester Saraceno
The Tenth Kiss by Joannes Secundus
The Kiss by Anne Sexton
Fires by Floyd Skloot
Touches by Floyd Skloot
Breakfast In Bed by Michael S. Smith
The Water Cycle by Alison Stone
In Victoria's Secret, Near The Bras by Wally Swist
Redbud by Wally Swist
I Woke Up by Patti Tana
Laughing Thoroughbreds by Patti Tana
Lineaments Of Desire by Patti Tana
In The Kitchen by Alexander Taylor
Good by Bruce Taylor
I Want To Love You With Every Piece Of This Body by James Tipton
In The Absence Of Ocean by Alison Townsend
All Year Long by Anonymous
Aubade by Anonymous
The Enjoyment by Anonymous
Her Eyes In Sleep by Anonymous
Coming Together by Jeff Walt
Heat In The Body by David Watts
Love Poem by Sarah Brown Weitzman
Cloudburst by Edward L. Wier
Aubade by Robert Wrigley
Sun And Moon by Gina Zeitlin
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About the Author
Wendy Maltz is a leading sex therapist and marriage counsellor, and the author of The Sexual Healing Journey.

Customer Reviews

Much more than kisses
This well-meaning little anthology succeeds on several levels. Editor Wendy Maltz has collected 120 poems, from various times and places, on the not at all small topic of sexual love. Maltz explains in her Introduction that she has spent a lot of years pondering the subject - in her work and her life. In addition, Maltz loves poetry and is eager to promote its inestimable ability to provoke desire, describe physical and emotional states - and above all else express what may have hitherto been inexpressible. This collection meets her goals.

It is 'erotica,' and these terrific poems are definitely and unabashedly about the real thing. Should you leave it around the house? If you don't object to teenagers (for example) reading poetry of sexual experience that promotes love and some sweetness along with the passion - you can most assuredly leave it around the house. There is no gender bias or sexual orientation bias, although there is also no overt campaigning, either.

There is flirtation and playfulness (Nikki Giovanni's 'That Day": " if you've got the key/then I've got the door"). Intense sensuality (Sharon Olds, Walter Benton, David Watts, Neil Carpathias, Laura Gourlay - among many more.) The reader is treated to ways of talking about love and sex that are fresh and surprising. One poem (by Renaissance poet Johannes Secundas) has been translated from Latin. Powerful stuff - that would have enlivened many a Latin class.

Unfortunately there is no information on the contributors other than the fulfillment of the legal requirement of Permissions Acknowledgements. The reader is left to his or her own devices to find out more. The title sounds faintly oxymoronic. In addition the poems are presented without dates of either composition or publication. No index of first lines, either. Wonderful poets such as these deserve the kid-glove treatment, and all the publicity they can get. These gripes aside, this is a book of poetry that is well worth reading and rereading.

Words Dipped in Pleasure
"Sex within a context of real love, commitment, and safety is expansive and deeply pleasurable." ~Wendy Maltz

Until I started writing my own poetry; there was no way to realize the depth of emotion present in intimate poems. How do you even remember everything that happens when almost unaware of time itself and captured in a mystery or moment of breathless wonder?

Do poets hover above themselves in some dreamlike state observing this ecstatic union awaiting its birth in words? Does the soul watch the body's pleasure, silently? It seems it does because when poems arrive often they spill out onto the page in line after line of meaningful remembrance without much effort or thought. These types of poems seem born of longing, fantasy, dreams and the ancient desires all humans share. There is also humor in some of the rhymes or a casual elegance.

Nikki Giovanni brings an amusing style to her poetry in "That Day." The poem dances with the pleasure of the rhyme.

if you've got the key
then i've got the door
let's do what we did
when we did it before

Peeling an Orange by Virginia Hamilton Adair also shows the playfulness of love as two lovers play with oranges and the spicy scent of orange oil fills the air.

There are poems that are more direct and sensual and they explore the depths of the human experience and often express our desire to feel loved until our bodies vibrate at a higher frequency. This subtle purr or contentment after a loving experience can actually be felt in the body, but it is often difficult to describe. Some of the lovers wish to die in this blissful state after union. Wendy Lee expresses this desire in "Seamless Beauty" where she wishes to "fall into a deep sleep and never wake up."

Many of the poems contain nature images, especially water, the moon and surprisingly...many images of moths. What more could I wish for? There are swarms of luminous moths or ecstasy in a desert sea. A few of the poems have culinary themes. Jay Farbstein remembers a scene in the kitchen and how the pleasure of tastes turns into a worshipful experience.

Mostly, this is beautiful creative writing with a sensual theme. There are poems reflecting on past loves, poems about intense sensual encounters (Making Love by Walt Farran) and others where the poet wishes for future fulfillment. Like in Thirst by Linda Alexander:

Like a blade of summer grass
turning towards a fragrance
of rain caught in the air's
cooling, I come back to you

Wendy Maltz has created a sensitive and sacred sanctuary of healthy sexual experience in which lovers give sexuality a unique voice filled with imagination and metaphor. This is beyond romance, but never abusive or degrading. There is still a subtle mystery present in most of the poems. I loved the images in On Entering the Sea where Nizar Qabbani speaks of his experience as a "sliding under the skin of water...like writing with jasmine water."

The poems are divided into five chapters: Anticipation & Desire, Self-Awareness & Discovery, Admiration & Appreciation, Union & Ecstasy and Afterglow & Remembrance.

The poets featured: Marge Piercy, Emily Dickinson, Patti Tana, Robert Browning, Robin Jacobson, Linda Alexander, Floyd Skloot, George Keithley, David Meuel, Debra Pennington Davis, Penny Harter, Nikki Giovanni, Rumi, Trudi Paraha, Vigrinia Hamilton Adair, Stephen Dunn, Abigail Albrecht, Sharon Olds, Octavio Paz, Nizar Qabbani, Anon, Cummings, Kenneth Rexroth, June Sylvester Saraceno and Penny Harter.

What is especially delicious about this book of poetry is the introduction to a variety of new poets. For many of the poets, this is the first time their poems were published. I fell in love with Trudi Paraha's poetry. Her descriptions of painting love poems over sheets went beyond creative. She plays with words as if they owned her heart.

The erotic human experience is often a place of immense pleasure and most of the poets in this book seem to be writing from a place of relationship, trust and honesty. There is a nurturing quality to the lust, a beautiful connection between souls and an almost spiritual element in the union of lovers in a comforting embrace and heartfelt connection.

David Meuel's poems are especially interesting. He speaks of talking in touches and listening to each other's fingertips. In just a few sentences he can create amazing situations of desire. "What Makes It Good" shows his talent and "Ten Years Together" displays a rare intimacy between souls.

While you may think of erotic poems as poetry to excite passion, I found many of these poems were dipped in pleasure, but still retained an element of comfort. This is the type of book you can read at night before you go to bed and it may even produce beautiful dreams of the person you love. Intimate Kisses is as much a kiss for the mind as for the heart.

Something like my soul slips from me
and goes to you,
without choice or question,
and wraps itself around you
all night, like the breath
of the moon
~Gina Zeitlin

Intimate Kisses is an excellent choice is you have longed to know the experience of poets who can deftly describe the devotional side of desire. If you love this book, you may want to look for Passionate Hearts: The Poetry of Sexual Love. I can highly recommend both selections because they focus on positive images of sexual love.

~The Rebecca Review

A great gift for a lover or even a friend...
I went into the bookstore looking for a book to share with my current lover, and finally after spending an hour staring at the shelves found this little gem. The book is perfect, because it contains a wide variety of enriching language on the subject of love and sex... which is what I was seeking to share with my signfigant other. But it is also perfect because it makes one aware through reading that the common conceptions of sex that we see in mass media are so very dull compared to the variety present in this small volume. I think I'm going to drop a copy of this wrapped up discretely and anonomously on an over-sexed male co-worker's desk. The book is also perfect as a gift to man who hasn't grown out of his teenage (and porn industry soaked) ideas of sex. If he can spend some time reading it, it might blow his mind (and change his life). Why? Because this is a book that profoundly expresses that the best love and sex come out of the kind of intimacy that's pretty tough to find in a one-night stand.