Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Question 1

Valentine
Person?
Form?
Structure?

Answer 1

1st, More personal and emotional
Free verse, Love is unpredictable, thought expressed freely
Two lines in centre, Move from positive to negative, declaration, love deteriorates over time

Question 2

Valentine
Context?

Answer 2

-Ann Duffy was the first female poet laureate
-Written for a request for an unconventional Valentine’s day poem

Question 3

Valentine
5 quotes

Answer 3

‘Not a red rose or a satin heart’
‘It will blind you with tears like a lover’
‘I am trying to be truthful’
‘platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring’
‘cling to your knife’

Question 4

Valentine
‘Not a red rose or a satin heart’

Answer 4

-Negative opening, subverts convention and dismissed tradition
-Stark contrast to title
-Traditional symbols are cliched and meaningless
-Emphatic verbless sentence

Question 5

Valentine
‘It will blind you with tears like a lover’

Answer 5

-Simile, love creates grief and pain, maybe from bad personal experience?
-Violent verb, power is overwhelming, similar to an onion and Cupid
-Warning against danger of love

Question 6

Valentine
‘I am trying to be truthful’

Answer 6

-Short sentence, declaration of honesty, need for openness in a relationship
-Alliteration, expose reality of love
-Central in poem, important

Question 7

Valentine
‘platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring’

Answer 7

-Oxymoronic between precious jewellery and an boring onion, irony
-Reminder of traditional, restrictive marriage
-Societal expectation to formally marry

Question 8

Valentine
‘cling to your knife’

Answer 8

-Sensory detail, encompasses body, long lasting remains
-Repetition of ‘cling’, entrapment even when over
-Threatening violence, love has become its antithesis
-Slice through onion, can slice through heart