Valentine

Wendy Cope embraces traditional poetic forms, especially overlooked and underestimated ones. The clover-leaf triolet form employed in “Valentine” dates back hundreds of years, considered a throwback even in the 19th century. These short little songs of two rhymes and eight lines—one of which repeats twice and one three times—rarely addressed any kind of sweeping philosophical or political topics. Love songs, children’s rhymes, nostalgia, and other topics associated with so-called light verse tend to characterize most triolets. Cope’s many triolets test the technical aspects of the form with complex, polysyllabic rhyme, irregular enjambment, and even an extra line in her “Nine-Line Triolet.” Especially in triolets like “Valentine,” Cope uses the reader’s assumption of simplicity within this eight-line miniature to introduce a kind of unreliable narrator, a poetic speaker who exudes charm along with a thread of menace. Depending on the reader, that menace can be interpreted as comical or sinister.

The beloved might be disarmed by the mixed metaphor in the poem’s opening line: “My heart has made its mind up.” The speaker assembles contrary body parts, or anthropomorphizes the heart itself as having a mind separate from the speaker’s. Either way, the speaker relinquishes power from the beginning, lacking the power to argue with the heart’s resolve and also seeming to speak without plan or organization. As the poem unfolds, the speaker reveals her complete control by not only executing a complex form but testing and reinventing it while summoning dual meanings with every expression. This first line must be repeated two more times according to triolet form, so its composition ends up being one of the most intentional of the poem. The poet will go on to use context to extract further meaning and urgency with each repetition.

If the listener/reader hesitates to identify the speaker as goofily benevolent after the first line, the second line shores up the speaker’s comic identity with an apology: “I’m afraid it’s you” (Line 2). This line will repeat once more as the final line of the poem, fulfilling standard triolet form. Once again, the composition of this line requires strict intention on the part of the triolet writer, knowing it bears the weight of pulling together all eight lines into a final statement. Embedding the apology here, then, means a second anxious apology will come around in another six lines.

In the opening lines of “Valentine,” Cope introduces a meek speaker, quivering with self-doubt, unable to orchestrate a sensible metaphor. Alternately, Cope coyly engages the reader by presenting a calculating speaker in complete control of form and language, one who enlists the reader’s support by appearing nonthreatening. The first unsettling moment comes in that second line, where “I’m afraid it’s you” (Line 2) at first appears to invoke the colloquial meaning of “I’m afraid,” a subtle acknowledgement of a disappointing truth, far from any actual fear. But few speakers offer declarations of love in poetry—as this speaker does—as though the beloved has won a terrible sort of lottery. The news of affection will not be well-received, the speaker knows. In the short span of these eight lines, the reader must decide how playful or how sinister the declaring lover portrays herself. Though the speaker anticipates rejection, she presses on in confidence—if not in her chosen beloved, at least in her own facility with language.

The poem’s third line more specifically addresses the speaker’s alienation from the object of her affection by alluding to other plans the beloved must have, plans the speaker cannot envision. The general “whatever” (Line 3) encompasses all options: another love, other obligations, plans for solitude. “Lined up” (Line 3) connotes order and scheduling, as if the speaker knows the beloved must possess many attractive possibilities, all of which do not include the speaker. Despite that reality, the speaker reaffirms her conclusions as Line 1 repeats, according to the form’s requirements, as the fourth line. Any plans made by the beloved now exist in a new context, one in which the beloved must operate in awareness of the speaker’s made-up mind. The once-timid speaker makes a subtle power move by situating her heart’s desire as the backdrop for any and all futures planned by the beloved. Still, the feminine rhyme (stressed syllables followed by unstressed syllables) and the conversational tone maintain a lighthearted charm.

Line 5 flirts with the concept of consent, raising the question of whether or not the beloved can be persuaded, or “signed up.” Even in her comic work, Cope often gestures at serious social topics (the title of this collection is Serious Concerns). Her work consistently urges the reader toward self-examination, toward questioning where we can find laughter in discomfort or consolation in awkward, unfiltered honesty. The break in Line 5 right at the moment of anticipated refusal, as the beloved “can’t be signed up” (Line 5), resonates as a threat. But enjambment undercuts the menace by offering “this year” at the beginning of the next line (Line 6), envisioning a future where the speaker’s affections might be reciprocated. “Next year will do” (Line 6), the speaker concedes, civility returned. A breath of laughter sets up the resolution of the form, the repetition of the two opening lines. After the speaker’s demonstrations of control and wit, these lines ring with more confidence than they did at the opening. The speaker’s self-deprecation reads less as pitiable and playful and more as strategic and incisive. After such a display of poetic elegance and linguistic acrobatics, this speaker represents an equal to anyone. The laughter elicited by the last line, “And I’m afraid it’s you” (Line 8), reflects the reader’s understanding that some manipulation has occurred. The performance awes the surprised audience with the unexpected, even in a form where at all times the reader knows how the poem must end.