Poetry Response #8

Victoria Anderson

Mrs. Jernigan

English IV AP

22 March 2011

Poetry Response #8

            Each tercet in “Lonely Hearts” contains a new idea whether it is a “Male biker”, “Gay vegetarian”, “Executive”, “Attractive Jewish lady”, or “Libran” and connects each of these into “can someone make my wish come true” and “Is it you?” 

With the last quatrain, the author Wendy Cope connects these people’s desires to her own. She wants that someone who can sweep her off her feet and fill the desire of her wish. This villanelle focuses on one main emotion, the desire to find love. This oozes from each tercet to the last quatrain as Cope reveals her heart.

We all have one equal wish in life, to find that special someone. However, this could range from a husband to canine.  In “Lonely Hearts” however, the author is clearly looking for that significant other. She sees the eclectic persons around her finding this desire and she is ready for this feat as well. In each tercet I feel that she is attempting to show the relationship between herself and an “attractive Jewish lady” not by appearance or relation but through desire.  In the end, the last quatrain, or her final statement validates the parallel relationship that she shares with all of the other characters mentioned in the tercets. Through this, I feel she continues the theme, in a more dramatic sense, of the desire to find that significant other.