Photo courtesy: Gourmet strawberry ice cream on an elegant platter by Daniel and Hannah Snipes, Pexels.

Good evening, everyone!    

Sanaa here (aka adashofsunny) delighted to host Open Link Night today and Live edition on Saturday.    

You can link up one poem of your choice below or write to the optional mini prompt which we are offering today.    

This is a live edition, but we will only have one opportunity to join on Saturday at 10 AM New York Time. The session will run on Google Meet.    

Please click on the link below to join us on Saturday: 

https://meet.google.com/voc-difd-nuf

Now for the mini prompt: 

Consider the opening line from Edna St Vincent Millay’s poem “Love is not all.”

“Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink nor slumber nor a roof against the rain.” 

It is one of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s best-known sonnets, exploring the limitations and the necessity of love.  

Love cannot satisfy hunger or thirst, nor can it “slake the drought” or “mend a broken bone.”  

She uses concrete imagery of survival — water, shelter, healing — to emphasize that love is not physically sustaining. This is realism: she acknowledges that love, by itself, cannot keep a person alive. 

The poem gives us a paradox of love’s value. Even after discrediting love’s usefulness, the speaker complicates her argument: 

“Yet many a man is making friends with death / Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.” 

Here, love becomes paradoxically both unnecessary and essential — not to the body, but to the spirit. It may not save a person physically, but the lack of it can make life unbearable. 

The tone shifts throughout the poem, mirroring a sort of psychological argument as if the poet is debating herself and eventually comes to a reluctant, heartfelt conclusion. 

Critics praise the poem for rejecting sentimental or idealized portrayals of love common in traditional sonnets.  

Instead, Millay takes a realistic and skeptical approach, acknowledging love’s limitations while still affirming its emotional necessity. For further inspiration, I have included an image to stir your muse.   

Photo courtesy: Moody urban night scene with umbrella by Josh Hild, Pexels.  

If you choose to use the optional prompt, you can use the line, the photo, both or just one. The prompt is open until Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Please do join us at the live session at 10 am New York Time. Have fun and see you on the poetry trail!