Let's Talk with Maggie Toussaint

My first ever brush with poetry was on Valentine’s Day in first grade. I’d never thought about sentence structure, indeed I was barely reading, but there was a special something about poetry that always caught my attention.

Oftentimes poems have a certain beat created by the word patterns. As an example, I often think of “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe: “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary…” I feel the pulse of the words and am always lured forward through a poem like this. There’s the same stylism in a poem I learned as a kid.

Okay, I admit that I am not exactly a consuer of poetry, but I truly enjoy funny or unusual poems, often in pattern of the classic “Roses are red, Violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you,” my featured artistic work today.

But before I jump into the newer evolutions of this poem, did you know hold this poem is? According to a blogger at Thurds.*, the origins of the poem can be traced as far back to 1590 to Sir Edmund Spenser’s poem “The Faery Queen.”

"It was upon a Sommers shynie day,

When Titan faire his beames did display,

In a fresh fountaine, farre from all mens vew,

She bath’d her brest, the boyling heat t’allay;

She bath’d with roses red, and violets blew,

And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forest grew."

A variation by Joseph Riston was published in 1784 in Gammer Gurton’s Garland is more widely known:

“The rose is red, the violet’s blue,

The honey’s sweet, and so are you.

Thou are my love and I am thine;

I drew thee to my Valentine:

The lot was cast and then I drew,

And Fortune said it shou’d be you.”

The 1784 version is more similar to today’s spelling of words, but in either version, there’s a sense of love, longing, and hopeful belonging, something all of humanity yearns for. That’s why this simple poem, especially the first two lines of the Riston version are timeless and will continue to endure, a legacy every author dreams of.

Just for fun, here are several updated (and some slightly reworded by me) versions I found at wiki How to do anything** online:

Roses are red, Violets are blue

You make the world better, by just being you.

Roses are red, Violets are blue

daVinci painted Mona, ‘cuz he didn’t know you.

Roses are red, Violets are blue,

Even without gravity, I’d fall for you.

Roses are red, Violets are blue,

I’m Liam Neeson, and I will find you.

Roses are red, Grasses are green

Who needs love when you have memes.

Roses are red, your eyes are brown

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down.

Roses are red, Violets are blue,

Monsters are coming, I’m faster’n you.

I could keep going for hours, but I’ll rein myself in. If you’d like a chance to win a copy of my latest book (cozy paranormal mystery FLAMED OUT, written under my pen name of Valona Jones), comment with a version of “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue that you like from above or any other PG-rated version that you find or write. Two winners will be selected on Tuesday of next week. (The giveaway book is in digital and print, but the print books are only available to US residents.)

*Source of the origin of the 2 original poems mentioned above, “The Origin of ‘Roses Are Red Violets Are Blue’”, author Thursd., dated Jan 19, 2026, https://thursd.com/articles/the-origin-of-the-roses-are-red-violets-are-blue-poem

**Wiki link is https://www.wikihow.com/Roses-Are-Red-Violets-Are-Blue-Funny

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ps photo credits are embedded in the images of this post