How to Use This Book / Frequently Asked Questions
Will this book help improve my love life and/or my English?
How will it help help improve my love life?
- Read the first half of this book containing fifty poems representing love, dedicated to love, and written with love on the brain; they celebrate romance, the impulse to feel good, and the complications of love.
- Give a copy of the book to loved ones and see what happens.
How will it help improve my English?
- The second half of this book contains my definitions for every word used in the poems. That way readers can quickly flip to the back to learn the meanings of words they might not know. Learning words in context is better than rote memorization. Reciting them will help even more.
- Most of the poems contained within use meter and rhyme.
In most, but not all cases, I went for exact rhymes, meaning the pronunciation is the same as the matching word, so if one line ends with “stare” the next line might end with “care”. Other types of rhymes that I tried to avoid are close but not exact, for instance, “Vegas” with “(out)rageous”, which don't rhyme exactly.
The goal of meter is many, but it is also to help non-native speakers “hear” the sound patterns in English. It's the musical quality readers should hear in their heads when reading the poems or sounding them out. This part can be especially hard for non-native speakers. Practice by reading them aloud.
- If you have a computer, check out www. MikkaMiAmor.com
How should I read the book, straight through?
- The poems are not sequential. Skip around.
The poems are to Mikka, but is “you” always Mikka?
- “You” is whomever you wish it to be. It's your imagination that gives them meaning. Meaning is what you bring to the words you read.