A Very Valentine: Significance in Repetition

Gertrude Stein makes an art out of repetition and seemingly broken stanzas. More meaning is placed in simple words, which makes her poems about everyday life and occurences appear to have greater importance. General feelings about emotion and relationships is discussed in the poem, "A Very Valentine." Stein continuously repeats the words, "very," "fine," "mine," and "valentine," but the order in which she places the words in different lines just signifies to the reader the heightened experience the author is feeling about the ownership of her significant other. "Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine," states Stein with words that have the most importance also rhyming and somehow the repetitiveness does the emotion justice. Short and to the point this poem represents imagism in that it is a moment in time that expresses the current feeling in an exact and to the point kind of manner.