---
title: "Hint Fiction, Selected Aphorisms and Love"
description: "Happy Valentine's Day. For some this is a day of love poetry and candied hearts, for others it is a day of willfully ignoring the former. Regardless of your state, I want to share two books with you:..."
url: https://somisguided.com/2011/02/14/hint-fiction-selected-aphorisms-and-love/
date: 2011-02-14
modified: 2011-02-14
author: "Monique"
type: post
lang: en
---

# Hint Fiction, Selected Aphorisms and Love

Happy Valentine’s Day. For some this is a day of love poetry and candied hearts, for others it is a day of willfully ignoring the former. Regardless of your state, I want to share two books with you:

[!(https://somisguided.com/wp-content/uploads/hint-swartwood_thumb.jpg)](http://www.robertswartwood.com/hint-fiction/)

(http://www.robertswartwood.com/hint-fiction/)

Edited by Robert Swartwood

(Published by WW Norton)

[!(https://somisguided.com/wp-content/uploads/glimpse-murray_thumb.jpg)](http://georgemurray.wordpress.com/)

(http://georgemurray.wordpress.com/)

by George Murray

(Published by ECW Press)

Both slim volumes are big on the poetry of brevity. And in honour of Saint Valentine, I have plucked some love stories for you.

**Hint Fiction: Edited by Robert Swartwood**

Rapunzel by James Burt

The boys waited below the tower-block for the paper planes. They fought over them, to be the one to carry them back to her.

Ideal by Ha Jin

The boy dreams of becoming a panda who makes money by meeting visitors. For such a pampered celebrity, even a girlfriend is provided.

The Time Before the Last by Marcus Sakey

He held her crepe-paper hand and summoned an autumn day, sepia and smoke, and dancing, and music that sounded nothing like the beeping of machines.

**Glimpse: Selected Aphorisms by George Murray**

Writing the erotic poem is like ironing in the nude, sexy for women, dangerous for men.

She looks like a million bucks, but it’s all in fives.

In martyrs and poets both, the rumour of greatness is enough to starve off criticism.