Valentine

A valentine almost always has a heart. Cope’s “Valentine” works as both an earnest love poem and a satire of love poetry. As one of the only visuals in a poem made up of conversational expressions, the heart figure dominates from the title to the penultimate line. The “heart” in the first, fourth, and seventh repeated line represents a traditional valentine heart, echoing the title, symbolizing romantic love. But “heart” also represents the essence of the speaker, the speaker’s true nature. The heart, according to the speaker, has a mind of its own, one that is “made up” (Lines 1, 4, and 7). The speaker then externalizes this image, as if her own heart is both part of her and something else, moving on its own beyond her control. In a poem called “Valentine,” the heart becomes a powerful visual and emotional vessel, controlling the action of the poem and serving as the physical incarnation of the title.

Cope uses the expression “made its mind up” referring to her heart in the first line of the poem, repeated as Lines 4 and 7. Since a heart can’t have a literal mind, the deliberate mixed