Before You Were Mine

Question 1

What is this poem about?

Answer 1

It explores a daughter’s reflection on her mother’s life before she became a parent.

Question 2

What does the title mean?

Answer 2

A daughter’s perspective on two distinct periods of her mother’s life, even two distinct ‘lives’ perhaps.

Question 3

Context

Answer 3

Duffy raised in impoverished part of Glasgow.
Moved to England, aged 6.
Awarded poet laureate in 2009, the first woman to hold the post in its nearly 350 year history.
Place names used in the poem provide biographical details about the mother’s life before she had children.
Poem could be seen as autobiographical.

Question 4

Technique in stanza one

Answer 4

Use of present tense - “laugh bend holding shriek blows”, adds to the sense of reality, re-creating in words the selected moment in time, making it come alive in a verbal photograph.

Identifying the girl ‘pals’ in the old photo and Glasgow place names, helping to establish the youthful, other life of the poet’s mother, ‘somewhere in Scotland’ before her daughter was born.

Question 5

Technique in stanza one and three

Answer 5

Use of onomatopoeic words ‘shriek’ in stanza 1 emphasising the sound of excitement imagined from the photo.
‘Clatters in stanza 3 emphasising the realistic sound of the high heeled red shows on the ground again imagined by the daughter.

Question 6

More techniques

Answer 6

Simile - “clear as scent”, the comparison, mixing visual and aural images, emphasising the distinctiveness, individuality of the young woman.

Alliteration - “stamping stars”, helping to emphasise the dance movements, the fun shared by mother and daughter after attending ‘mass’.

Question 7

Structure and form

Answer 7

Four stanzas, each of five lines, each stanza end stopped, each stanza presents verbal snapshots of separate moments in time, featuring the woman who became the writer’s mother, some of her as a carefree teen girl, some as a responsible mother.

Question 8

Themes

Answer 8

Parenthood
Love
Memory
Youth