Valentine

Wendy Cope stands as one of the foremost contemporary practitioners of poetic forms. Her triolets expand and reinvent the eight-line traditional structure. Like rondeaus and rondels, this songlike, short poetic form derives shape from strict rhyme and the repetition of certain lines. “Valentine” follows the rhyme and line repetition pattern required of triolets: ABaAabAB, but she shortens the typical tetrameter (four metrical feet) to trimeter (three metrical feet). The trimeter lines have an economy and speed, as well as heightening the comic effect of the feminine A rhymes. For reference, feminine rhyme takes place when stressed syllables (the “A”s above) precede unstressed syllables. Each “A” line also ends with an amphibrachic foot (“bAB,” which has a stressed syllable between unstressed syllables) as a result of the feminine rhyme; use of the amphibrach in triolets dates back to the form’s French origins. The form saw its greatest popularity in English in the 19th century, though its deceptive appearance of simplicity and potential for wit has brought it back into vogue in the 21st century.