16 pages • 32 minutes read
Mary Jo SalterVideo Blues
Mary Jo SalterFiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form
“Video Blues” is a villanelle, which is a fixed form consisting of 19 lines divided into five tercets (three-line stanzas) and one quatrain (four-line stanza). Villanelles follow a set pattern of repetition where the first and third lines of the first stanza are repeated alternately at the end of the following stanzas, and both are repeated at the end of the final quatrain. This can be seen in the poem as the line “My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy” (Lines 1, 6, 12, 18) repeats at the end of the second and fourth stanzas, as well as the second-to-last line in the final quatrain. The line “It makes some evenings harder to enjoy” (Lines 3, 9, 19) also repeats at the end of the third stanza and, with variation, the end of the fifth and sixth stanzas. Due to this set repeating pattern, villanelles are often used as a vehicle for portraying topics that are obsessive and circular. This can be seen in the poem as the speaker compulsively worries about her husband’s crushes and makes no linear progress toward solving the problem.
