A Rose By Any Other Colour Trivia Quiz

"Red roses and Valentines Day are match made in heaven", said the florist. She continued to tell me that red roses speak of romantic love, that they're the echo of two hearts beating and that the deeper the hue the greater the longing or, better still, the commitment. She even quoted the great Robert Burns, who compared his love with "A Red Red Rose" (1794), as he endeavoured to capture the essence of the power of love and combine them with the warmth of his affections.

Poets will use red to convey powerful human emotions. Beyond love, they will also create intensity in lust, rage, and even fear. As you can see, it can convey both a positive and a negative vibration to a line, a verse, or even a whole poem. Alfred Noyes, in his classic poem "The Highwayman" (1906), draws a range of symbols from this colour. If you're not familiar with the poem it tells the tale of a roadside bandit who has fallen for Bess, the daughter of a landlord. In a similar vein to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (1597), they are star-crossed lovers.

The highwayman wears a cloak of "claret velvet", which hints at his courage, albeit in an ignoble form. Bess, for her part, symbolizes her love for the robber by plaiting a "dark-red love knot" into her hair. However, a larger issue for Bess is that she has another admirer, Tim the ostler, who cares for the horses at the inn. His desire for her is characterized when Bess is described as "the landlord's red-lipped daughter", indicating that Bess is the object of desire of more than one man. Soldiers in red coats symbolize danger and they bind Bess to a musket in such a way that if she warns her lover of the trap that has been set for him, she will die. Tragically, she warns the highwayman. "Blood red were his (the highwayman's) spurs in the golden noon" which echoes the rage of the highwayman, as he brandishes his sword and curses the sky.

"The sun kissed yellow rose", the florist tells me, "radiates the warmth in friendships and relationships. They can make the worst of days feel like a summer's day" (ka-ching... again).

Poets will take up those mantles, but they will also use the colour to create brightness, energy, optimism, intellect and enlightenment. Yet, in darker circles, it can be used to symbolize stagnation, decay, death, and even cowardice.

In her 1972 poem "Yellow", Anne Sexton mentions the colour only once in the entire work and, then, only to reference the title, however she cleverly uses a range of images of similar hues to convey her feelings. The opening line, "When they turn the sun/on again", uses the lack of sun to indicate that she is not in a good spot as she is writing. Whether she is dealing with grief or depression is not known, but she is enduring a dark time in her life. Conversely, a little later in the piece, she uses the slightly yellow image of fire to convey optimism... "I'll light up my soul/with a match".

William Wordsworth, with his famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (1804) uses the image of dancing daffodils to convey joy which entrances the narrator who can see them, but he doesn't understand them. It is later, when he is in a "in vacant or in pensive mood", that their image flashes into his mind that he becomes enlightened and acknowledges their creativeness, more beautiful than the ocean's waves that danced beyond them.

Once again, the money has disappeared from my wallet as the florist suggested that I pair her beautiful white roses with the green foliage of the Italian ruscus... "it will signify your innocence and the purity of your intentions to your true love, while suggesting the dawn of a new beginning."

If you have studied colour you will know that white is not a single colour, but an amalgam of all colours. The best example is light, which fractures into an array of colours when it passes through a prism. It is this connection with white light that we get the connection to purity; however, it can also reflect cleanliness, peace or emptiness. On the flipside, some Eastern cultures see white as the colour of mourning. By extension it can also represent death or coldness.

One of the best examples that I could find where the poet uses both of what is "good and bad" about the colour is "White Notes" (1972) by Donald Justice. This is a poem that deals with the loss of the narrator's beloved, and it is broken up into to four sections. In the opening section he speaks of the wonders of his loved one. It contains images that project energy, liveliness, and naturalness...

"Suddenly there was a dress/inhabited, in motion
It contained a forest/small birds, rivers
It contained the ivory/of piano keys/white notes"

It would be easy for the significance of the ivory to be lost on the reader if they were not aware of music theory. The white notes on a piano are "natural" notes - a symbol of purity, simplicity and innocence - there is not a sharp or a flat note amongst them.

The last section mentions the ivory again... "long after the ivory could have been brought back to life/by any touch". We are aware that the beloved has left him, though whether that was by death or by departure is not clear. Justice also uses the whiteness of the moon, in the final section, to create a distance between he and the one that he has lost... "Then, when not even the moon/would have the power to bruise you anymore".

Torn between the passionate love of red roses and the pure innocence of the white, the florist suggested I look at pink roses... but there were so many shades. Light pink she said is all gentleness and grace, pale pink conveys sweetness, the darker shade shows gratitude and the hot pink reeks of desire.

Poets will see pink as another shade of red and, consequently, it too will convey strong emotions. But there is also an air of femininity about it, a touch of playfulness and even innocence. As with the shading above, context would be important in poetry. The aforementioned grace can be showcased by a pink tutu on a ballerina while peonies would exude a sense of the delicate.

From the above you get the sense that pink is a lighthearted colour, full of playfulness and joy, however, Dara Yen Elerath rails against it in her 2022 piece "Against Pink". She is straight to the point from the opening line, declaring that "Pink is an unhappy hue" and then proceeds to pound us with a series of images that confirm her proclamation... "It is the color of fingernails shorn away, blood dripping from the waxen quick. It is the color of a sunburned arm. The color of harm that lingers on cut shins for days. Pink is not the shade of buttercups or daisies. It is the color of poisonous brugmansia blooms, of poppies that bring on sleep."

It would be easy to write this off as an article in negativity but it merely asks the reader to stop and reconsider what the colour may mean, not everything is always as it seems. For instance, that smile on your neighbour's face may well be hiding depression or darker thoughts.

(Footnote) Brugmansia are also known as Angel's trumpets which, despite their name, are among the most toxic of ornamental plants.

"So, you've just met her?" asked the florist. "Love at first sight?" and when I nodded her eyes went "ka-ching, ka-ching". Oh dear, this was going to hurt. "Purple roses" she said," lavender in particular. It virtually breathes story book love, majesty and a deep connection. Let me pair the roses with some purple carnations and I guarantee there'll be enchantment in the air this evening."

Many of the symbols that poets would use have been hinted above. The deeper shades of purple have strong links with royalty (majesty) and wealth, though it can also imply sorrow. Some will associate purple with the supernatural, with magic (enchantment), spirituality and even outer space. From a negative view it can be summonsed to imply arrogance.

If I told you that the name of the poem was "Lavender" (Joanna Fuhrman - 2021) what images would it conjure? Elegant pieces of intricate lace, fragrant segments of scented soap, endless rolling fields drenched with light purple blooms... then Fuhrman will shatter your illusions from her very first line;

"'Being in a funk' is what the cool people call it.
It's the purple that surrounds the scene at the lake.
Not sad enough to actually drown."

The interesting feature of the poem is that she has used lavender, a lighter shade of purple, to describe 'being in a funk'. She deliberately makes it a wishy-washy affair rather than using the deeper shade to strike a blow... "not sad enough to actually drown". By the end, the poem circles back to the start where the author implies that;

"If Virginnia Woolf had been in a funk,
She would have filled her pockets
With dead lilacs instead of rocks."

Unable to live with the pain of her mental illness, Woolf had had a total breakdown, filled her pockets with rocks and walked into the River Ouse to drown herself. There was nothing wishy-washy about this. Nothing deep purple about it... implying it was much more than a funk that Woolf had endured.

"If you wish to present yourself as a man of mystery and intrigue to your lover", claimed the florist, "present her with a bunch of blue roses. Why? Because they're an enigma. They do not exist in nature hence their beauty is an engineered one, which makes them rather unique, like you."

Blue has been a colour that has captivated us for centuries. Often, we have associated it with the sky and the ocean. The latter, in particular, can conjure images of vastness and depth, hence the intrigue (what is it hiding). In a short space of time it can represent tranquility and then change its face to be one of turmoil and tempest. Whilst it can also evoke a sense of spirituality and a sense of the infinite it does carry the baggage of sadness and melancholy with it.

I wish to contrast two poems here, one that doesn't use the word blue but delivers its message by using symbols and the other flagrantly slaps you in the face with it.

"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers."

This is T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" (1922) where the poet is expressing the blue tones of melancholy and sadness, without actually saying their names or the colour. The reference to winter serves to heighten that sense of despair, while the "forgetful snow" may bring a dose of tranquility and calmness, it is also unpleasantly suggestive of a sense of emptiness and numbness, both of which hasten the narrator's descent into the blues.

On the other hand, we have Robert Frost's two stanza meditation called "Fragmentary Blue", published the following year.;

"Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?"

There is no symbolism here but a very pertinent question... why are we making such a fuss about the beauty of a bright blue bird when there is so much blue up above us? In part, the answer to that may lie in the fact that, if you remove the sky and the ocean, there is very little blue to be seen in nature hence, when we see a flash of it, we are drawn to it. Frost declares that no matter where we are (above ground) on this Earth, the sky remains out of reach to us. His second stanza associates our blue skies with heaven and, while we are on earth it will continue to remain out of reach. Accordingly, the sight of a bright blue butterfly represents our little piece of heaven on Earth.

I ended up forking out more money to the florist who'd convinced me that orange roses were such a vibrant colour that they were a celebration of life. They represent energy and enthusiasm and that presenting a bouquet of orange roses to my true love will tell her that I am excited to see her. Here we go again... ka-ching.

Despite being a colour that resides between the powerful imagery of red and the optimism of yellow, orange is not often seen in literary circles. Whilst it is used to deliver all of the symbolism that the florist, above, advised, it can also represent creativity and fire. That said, because it is so bright and loud in its own right, when it does appear in literature, it is sure to stand out.

"The Orange Alert" (2006) is a contemporary poem by Douglas Kearney that was inspired by the fire prone regions of California. Here, the colour is foremost and prominent. Not only does he use it to vividly represent the wildfires that plague this area but he extends that symbolism to encompass our fears... death, illness and our sense of foreboding of an impending disaster. One of his strongest metaphors comes in the second stanza;

"We've known
The orange alert, fires reaching for helicopters
Like cartoon cats clawing at panicked birds"

Here, he clearly identifies orange with the wildfire, but he also displays the gravity of the situation by showing us how high those flames are (reaching for helicopters). He then highlights the fear when he turns the crew of the helicopter into "panicked birds". He revisits this image with the last lines of the poem... "the smog went orange with dusk, the growing shadows/of lingering birds"... the smog recalling the flames while the helicopters are the lingering birds.

Maya Angelou's "Caged Bird" (1983) compares the lives of two birds, one that shares its life with the wind and the other, the bars of a cage. As most of her work focuses on racism, scholars have intimated that the free bird is representative of the people that do not suffer the same injustices as the black communities. Maya overtly uses orange once in describing the free bird;

"A free bird leaps
On the back of the wind
And floats downstream
Till the current ends
And dips his wing
Into the orange sun rays
And dares to claim the sky"

The wind is the free bird's playground, and it basks in the joy of an orange sun... not only does it bask, it dares to dip its wings in it so that it carries it as a symbol of its flight and its freedom. By contrast, not a single colour is mentioned in the stanza about the caged bird.

Inadvertently I blurted out that my girl and I were serious about our relationship. Instantly, the florist filled my arms with a bouquet of green roses. "These will emphasize life, strength and fertility" she said, winking as she mentioned the latter.

Cynics will say that green is linked with envy and, whilst that may be true, in literature green is also associated with nature, spring, vitality and abundance. Not all writers will agree with that, most notable among them being Virginia Woolf, who famously said "Green in nature is one thing, green in literature is another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together, and they tear each other to pieces." O...kay.

With "Nothing Gold Can Stay" (1923), Robert Frost does an excellent job of bringing nature and letters together. Interestingly, he does this by swapping green for gold in the very first line;

"Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold"

Nature's first green are her new shoots. This is new life and life, like gold, is precious. He goes on to say that this is hard to hold onto. Here he takes us deeper, referring to fleeting nature of life which, in turn adds to its precious nature.

Despite the florist telling me that the Ancient Greeks and Romans saw the black rose as a symbol of strength and power, she could not sway me. It's sombre links to death, danger and sorrow were too overpowering for my taste.

Like the blue rose, black roses do not exist in nature and the closest one could get to one is either a very deep maroon or purple. Not only is this dark bloom linked to death and revenge, and it has also been a symbol for black magic, mutiny and obsessive love. They are linked with vampires, evil and dark souls. On a positive note, it can speak of sophistication (picture a black dress or formal wear) and authority, however, poets have generally been drawn to its dark side and its ability to draw complex emotions.

Mark Strand, in his work "Black Maps" (1970), uses black to symbolize mystery. His "black maps" are a metaphor for what awaits us next week, the next day, even the next minute.

"Nothing will tell you/where you are.
Each moment is a place/you've never been."

He, later, deepens this mystery by declaring;

"The present is always dark./Its maps are black,/rising from nothing,
describing,
in their slow ascent/into themselves,/their own voyage,
its emptiness."

On the other hand, Peruvian poet, Cesar Vallejo opens his 1918 poem, "The Black Heralds", with the line "Some blows in life, they're so heavy... I don't know" as if to lay the pathway for the arrival of "the black heralds that Death has sent us". These heralds that he speaks of are pain and despair and, whilst he does not announce them with the colour black, he does so with symbols; "dark trenches in the toughest faces" and "bloodied blows" that are "the sounds of bread/crackling in oven doors, turning to charcoal". If we were to look deeper, the dark trenches may well be scars. Whether those scars are physical, mental or spiritual is not known, but that doesn't matter, the picture has been painted and it speaks of grimness. However, the bloodied blows take us deeper still... the bread, that he compares the blows to, is not damaged, it has been burnt so badly that it has turned to charcoal, indicating that the blow is much more severe than the scars. And, in a brilliant piece of execution Vallejo rounds of his work the same way that he started it; "Some blows in life, they're so heavy... I don't know".

The look of disappointment on the florist's face was palpable. Her pitch was good, very good. She emboldens the colours of the rainbow as shades of diversity that highlight the harmony of two very different people working together, forming a union which, in itself was cause for celebration. I wilted a little and bought one rose, quoting Wendy Craig, saying that "one rose says more than a dozen".

Rainbows have inspired and, even, terrorized us since ancient times. They have been seen as bridges that connect and form unions. Norse mythology uses a rainbow bridge, the Bifrost as a connection between worlds, the Bible presents Noah with a rainbow as a vow and a connection between God and his children, and Greek mythology presents it as a conduit for the goddess Iris on which to deliver commands from Mount Olympus. Its diversity and ability to work in harmony has been embraced by the LBGTQ community and international peace movements.

Poets have embraced its awe-inspiring beauty. Wordsworth speaks of the joy it brings ("My Heart Leaps Up" - 1802), while others have used it to portray the triumph of light over darkness. James Thomson's (1700-1748) "The Rainbow" (publishing date unknown) raves about Isaac Newton's work to prove that all the colours form one white light, while John Keats' "Lamia" (1820) rebukes it by claiming Newton had managed to "unweave a rainbow".

There are two Emily Dickinson poems that produce an alternate use for the rainbow. "Some Rainbow - Coming From the Fair" (1924) turns the rainbow into a messenger that is announcing the approach of spring and, with it, change, rebirth, and optimism. First published in 1891, "Each Life Converges to Some Centre", talks of setting lofty goals in life but that, often, these can be impossible to reach. She compares these to touching a "rainbow's raiment". At first this appears a stripping away of hope but she, cleverly, reverses this by indicating "eternity enable the endeavouring/again"... meaning that there will be time for us to pursue this quest in another lifetime.