Valentine

• Carol Ann duffy - biritish poet struggled with oppresion of gender - was going to be poet laureat but it got taken away because of concern of how public would react (because she was a homosexual ) but got it back again in 2009 as the first woman poet laureate
• Carol ann duffy
• Summary - tackles modern day view of valentines day and traditional preconceptions of love and relationships - uses range of metaphors to express her unconventional love
• ‘i am trying to be truthful’

  • encapsulates the whole poem - of conveying truths of being in love
  • unlike traditional symbols of romance ‘red rose’ or ’satin heart’ - she says romance is like an onion
• Conflict with transience - lasting only a short time

  • ‘its fierce kiss will stay on your lips’ ‘its scent will cling to your finger’ ‘cling to your knife’
  • imagery showing love is permanent
  • but also also shows relationships can change a person but also the idea that traces of a relationship always remains
• ‘Red rose or satin heart’

  • alliterative ‘red rose’ is a synecdoche to refer to valentines day - both nouns are semantically linked to romantic materialism
  • the ‘rose’ and ‘heart’ reflects how romance is reduced to attractive gifts
• ‘I give you an onion’

  • first person ‘I’ and second person ‘you’ shows number of individuals in relationship
  • ’onion’ - metaphor for speakers love - love is more complex and layered than shallow romance shown in modern society
• ’Here.’

  • use of single word imperative - reinforces level of authority and assertion
• ’blind you with tears’

  • onion is a conceit in this poem - extended metaphor for speakers love
  • double entendre - onions make people cry - also saying love is lethal and makes you cry
• ‘blind you with tears’

  ’like a lover’

  • ‘tears’ and ‘lover‘ - half rhymes which draws attention to the two nouns - indicates the lover is a source of pain and sorrow - the relationship is one of pain
• ‘I am trying to be truthful’

  • Plosive ‘trying‘ and ‘truthful’ - harsh sounds - reality that love is harsh
  • use of present tense in ‘trying’ shows speaker is never fully ‘truthful’ and and is in a constant state of ‘trying’
• ‘Not a cute card or kissogram’

  • returns to beginning - cyclical structure indicates speakers inability to move forward - to move on
  • also reinforces idea that true love isn’t found in romantic materialism
• ‘Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips’

  ’possessive and faithful’

  • sibilance ‘kiss’ ‘stay‘ ’lips’ ‘possessive’
  • fricatives ‘fierce’ ‘faithful’
  • harsh vs soft sounds showing the conflict between the pain and happiness of love
• ’for as long as we are’

  • shows temporary nature of relationships
• ‘Take it.’

  • imperative verb - speaker being more demanding building on the ‘here.’
  • command emphasises how other person involved in relationship (potentially woman) needs to accept ‘take’ her unconventional love
• ‘Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring’

  • imagery - brings the metaphorical onion showing pain in love to a wedding ring - possibility that unconventional gay love can be a committed proud relationship
• ‘Lethal’

  • singular adjective - encapsulates main ideas shown with love and romance - especially gay love which was frowned upon -
  • lethal could mean physical - abuse from people not agreeing with gay love - or mental of people and themselves not accepting their gay love
• ‘Its scent will cling to your fingers’

  • showing traces of relationships remain
• ‘Cling to your knife’

  • symbolic for violence
• Perspective -

  • woman addressing a romantic partner (woman?)
  • duffy uses second person narration in order to involve reader through its direct address (‘you’ ‘your’)
• ’platinum rings shrink to a wedding ring’

  ‘lethal’

  • lethal breaks romance and reminds reader that love and pain are linked to each other Furthermore more - morbid turn from wedding to lethal
  • ’scent will cling’ - allegorical portrayal of how traces of portrayal remain
• Beginning - traditional symbols of romance

  ending - subverts traditional symbols of love
• ‘Platinum loops’

  • metaphorical for wedding ring
  • has to stay metaphorical and not happen irl because of their homosexuality - has to be secret and undercover or it cant happen at all
  • hence the ‘take it.’ means to accept the fact they cant express their unconventional love irl
• Free verse

  • Not traditional form - unconventional love - relationship doesnt adhere to social pressures of materialistic love
  • free verse shows speaker is liberated and shows emotional freedom
• Stanza lengths

  • extremely varied - shows inconsistency mirroring changes in love in the poem
  • single sentence stanza - straightforward honesty - change - harsh snappy tone to portray the pain of love further - outpour of passion of a long stanza afterwards with some enjambement
• Meter

  • traditional love poems like ballads or sonnets use a meter
  • Duffys poem goes against the normal
• Semantic field

  • red rose
  • satin heart
  • cute card
  • kissogram
  • concrete nouns - link to modern ideas of materialistic romance
  • duffy uses these to show how modern love isn’t true anymore and these are meaningless gestures
• Semantic field

  • blind you with tears
  • fierce kiss stay on lips
  • scent will cling
  • Senses - sight taste smell
  • sensory language - show romance is a emotional and physical thing and cant be reduced to a meaningless gif
  • shows passion as she can feel the love everywhere - onion metaphor for love - also very powerful - strong sting and scent
• ‘I give you an onion’

  • Metaphor for real and sincere love ‘onion’ is natural object - implies the love Is natural and the layers represents a complicated relationship covered up (hiding the unconventional gay love)
  • violent act of ‘blind(ing) you with tears’ and image of onion being chopped - shows real pain that comes in a relationship also ‘lethal’
• ‘It is a moon wrapped in brown paper’

  • Metaphor - onion described as moon - onion is more than a vegetable - it is a moon because it ‘promises light’ and that it is beautiful and has hope (links to platinum (white = hope) wedding ring)
• Symbolism of moon

  • represents there is a need for a greater source of light for it to shine - one person allows other person to shine
  • moon orbits around larger object - allegorical allusion - how speakers life revolves around their lover