Compare Valentine And Mean Time

The two poems I 've chosen are Valentine and Mean Time by Carol Ann Duffy. The poems come from the collection 'Mean Time ' and both have themes of love, loss and regret. The title 'Valentine ' has strong connotations with love and lust however the opening line is a contradiction to this. This line is alone to show this isn 't a generic story and adds to the love as it shows they have a connection where love isn 't stereotypical, it 's strange and different to what most people know love to be. The structure in general is haphazard but every stanza, including the single lines, have an end stop. This is because love is deep, crazy and strong, when you throw yourself in it is intense and this is shown by the full stanzas, the single lines are the less intense, calmer parts of love. 'Mean Time ' is similar as it has disjointed sentences so that the reader can relate and the pauses allow time for the reader to think and empathize with the narrator. To aid this, the poem is ambiguous as every one suffers loss no matter what gender and we all feel it deeply. This is also why three tenses are used throughout the poem, to show that loss is eternal and ever effecting. The title 'Mean Time ' doesn’t have the same connotations of …show more content…
This is a metaphor for all the layers of love and how the deeper you get the more painful as deeper into relationships and love, the more serious and painful the arguments get. The onion 'promises light ' which has links of hope and purity. This is the start of the relationship where they get to know each other and everything seems good and hopeful for the couple. In 'Mean Time ' there are words associated with light also used, however in very different ways. In 'Mean Time ' the clock 's "stole light" which is a description of their happiness fading over time and links to the title of how time, this being the symbol of the clock, "stole" their happiness thus being