First Love- D Flashcards
(13 cards)
About/context/ structure
It will cause the useful past love probably help for Adrian Henry
-Although more than 20 years older than her, she lived with him for 10 years from the age of 16
-He introduced her to the exciting controversial world of mercy poets
-Henry Brian Patton and Roger mcgough
-Whose collection was published in Penguin modern poets 10 the Mercy Sound this became one of the best selling volumes of poetry ever
-Meantime was published sometime after they parted
- Duffy uses blank verse non-rhyming Iambic pentameter
-With the extensive use of enjabment and caesura to vary the piece of the lyric as a speaker moves or pauses in her narrative
-She shows the power of memory to evoke emotions and acts in the present as a recurring theme and Duffy poems lead leads to an exploration of time as the past and present collide. The memories are so strong the past and the present emerge becoming indistinguishable from one another.
“ as close to my lips as lipstick”
Simile uses tactical imagery to create an immediate almost tangible connection between the act of speaking a name and the century memory of love
-Not only emphasises the intimacy but also hints at the nature of love the way beauty and desire can be as fleeting as the application of a cosmetic
“Garden shaking with light”
-could reply to both the lights outside possibly seen through the leaves and her emotional response
-It may also be a reference to Henry Vaughn’s poem Christ nativity which has the line “the Sun doth shake light from his locks”
-reference tothe metaphysical poets
-It transforms her ordinary garden into a dynamic almost an entity that mirrors the inner vibrancy of remembered love
“This was a child’s love”
-She’s reflecting that she fell in love very young
-At an age which she now sees herself as having been a child
-But that does not make it any less real or treasured
-It suggests the innocence and priority that despite the passage of time remains a touchdown for emotional experience
-It reflects on how such early relationships to seemingly transient continue to shape our identity and perceptions of intimacy
-her depiction of love is something that begins in childhood
-she recognises that this experience belong to a younger more innocent self implying that there has been a change and understanding overtime
-Yet the emotional intensity still lingers
-Suggesting that while the speaker has grown and changed, the memory has remained emotionally fixed
“Clench”
-It shows the importance of this memory to her
“ a star long dead here/ seems precisely the size of a tear’
-starlight is transmitted such distances that the stars themselves are dead by the time light reaches “here”
- suggest that even distant extinguished like an echo the depth of our emotions
-She likes her love to a star. It has the power to her emotions years after the relationship itself has died.
-The powerful metaphor captures how something gone or distant can still feel emotionally immediate
-The star forms a tear of loss in regret
-it reflects how emotional change includes grief and belonging
-The speaker is mourning something that has long since ended, but emotionally still resonates
“Stammers itself in my heart”
Describing love letter this way cast the act of writing is trembling was an involuntary expression of emotion highlighting the vulnerability inherent in recalling her past affection
-She’s amazed how feeling is coming resurrected after so much time with such fidelity
-It gives the image of her heartbeat, recalling the experience.
“Flowers suddenly pierce”
-The memories stimulate her sense of smell again using synaesthesia
- The dream is so vivid
-It suggests that nature itself responds to the power of memory and emotion
-Almost like the memories are bittersweet to her it is painful to remember the happiness and love she once felt
-The final image captures the paradox of change its beauty and pain and they coexist together
-She feels pain at what ones was and what she’ll never have, but it’s a fond memory
-Love has changed perhaps it’s gone, but it’s still influences the speaker perception 
“ the power of your name brings me here to the window, naked”
-She’s looking through the window watching the memories but she cannot touch
-She will always be out of reach despite being so close
-Links with the critic Jane Dawson “ outsideness is present in Duffy‘s work”
-The nakedness reflects her vulnerability and the raw exposure of deep personal sentiment
-The actor remembering causes a physical and emotional reaction
-Illustrating how love continues to have a transformative power in the present
Enjambent
- The frequent enjoyment creates a seamless uninterrupted flow of thoughts and images
-The technique mirrors the way memories intrude upon waking life often spilling over from one moment to the next without clay boundaries
-Enhancing the overall dream like quality of the poem
“Waking with a dream of first love forming real words”
It opens with the persona waking from a vivid dream
-The noun of waking demonstrates an emphasis on the way that a new relationship is, it’s like waking up for the new day
-The speaker awakened with a sudden vivid memory at first love showing how emotional change is not always linear or complete
-Time has passed but the feeling re-emerges with startling clarity
-suggesting that change can bring back as much as it can take away 
“ an old film played at a slow speed”
The memories altered by time blurred but not emotionally potent
-This reflects how change can affect not just events but how we reply and interpret them
“ you smile in my head on the last evening”
The past is not fully gone. It continues to haunt the present in a soft ways.
-The poem suggests that even when people or relationships change or disappear, emotional echoes can still remain
-Sometimes even growing stronger with time
