Valentine By Carol Ann Duffy

Valentine explores the poetic voices feelings and opinions on Valentine’s Day and love. It challenges the stereotypes of Valentine’s Day and the cliché gifts that are exchanged between lovers, this is done through the giving of a metaphorical onion as “a moon wrapped in brown paper.”

This poem is written in 6 stanzas which are all based on a free verse approach. The irregular stanzas within the poem are all short and disjointed; this could reflect the poetic voices experiences in love and their feelings towards it. The irregular stanzas are reject to traditional conventions which reflects what the poetic voice is trying to get across to readers within Valentine that she is going against tradition.

The short sentence structure used throughout such as ‘Lethal.’ emphasis the poetic voices feelings towards love such as the danger of commitment in love is dangerous to them, very much like the onion they are describing which they are saying represents love to them. ‘Not a red rose or a satin heart.’ The poetic voice suggests the cliché commercial gifts that are given to lovers are a meaningless sham and instead gives an onion going against these views. The main theme within Valentine is love. This is shown throughout and it explores all aspects of love. Duffy’s use of figurative language such as simile and metaphors allow her to develop the theme of love within the poem. 

a photo of my own analyisis.