Material

Question 1

Tradition, nostalgia and loss

Answer 1

• In “Material,” the speaker reflects on the disappearance of the once-common “hanky,” or handkerchief. Growing up, the speaker found the omnipresent hanky “embarrass[ing]”; it belonged to a past her generation rejected. Yet now that the speaker is older, she feels nostalgic for some of the trappings of her mother’s world. Indeed, the personal and durable hanky comes to symbolize a time when people paid closer attention to each other; when everyday interactions were more meaningful; and when products were durable rather than disposable. In longing for the hankies she once despised, the speaker longs for these lost features of the past: traditions and values she realizes had some merit after all.
• The hanky is deeply intertwined with the speaker’s childhood memories. For her, it represents a bygone world of slow, thoughtful encounters and well-made objects that people truly valued. The speaker recalls getting hankies as “presents from distant aunts,” and her mother always having several hankies “tucked in” her cardigans. At the “Annual Talent Show,” mothers fighting off “tears / would whip a hanky” out and clean the makeup off “little dears.” The speaker associates hankies, then, with love, family, and kindness—with a world where people looked out for each other.
• But those past values are gone in today’s world, and the speaker feels complicit in eroding them. The speaker says that “Nostalgia” just makes her “old.” In other words, the world is far removed from these things she’s remembering and missing. And she herself was part of the change from old to new: “The innocence” she wishes for her children “was killed in TV’s lassitude” (or lethargy), and she’s the one that “turned it on.” She can’t really be mad about changes she herself was eager to make. Still, she recognizes there was something worthwhile in those old-fashioned “material handkerchiefs.” She seemingly acknowledges that not everything has changed for the better; the modern world, after all, can feel rather cold and “disposable.”

Question 2

Motherhood and generational change

Answer 2

• The speaker of “Material” recalls how her mother always had a “hanky” at the ready. The speaker associates these handkerchiefs (unlike the “disposable” tissues that replaced them) with her mother’s intense love and devotion—and with the overall style of motherhood exemplified by past generations. She compares her mother’s preparedness for all of life’s ups and downs with her own lackluster parenting skills, claiming that she “raised neglected-looking kids” whose runny noses must be wiped by “strangers.” She feels that her own version of motherhood fails to live up to her mom’s standard. At the same time, she realizes she can’t hold on to an outdated ideal: she must “let it go” and focus on her own “material”—the reality of her life.
• The speaker’s fondness for her childhood memories suggests that she wishes she could have devoted as much time and attention to her children as her mother did to her. That her mother was the “hanky queen” suggests that she was always prepared for any situation that might arise. She was ready to wipe up her kids’ tears, “snot,” or makeup after a play. Her hanky was embroidered with her initials, hinting that she took personal pride in her role of cleaning and comforting her children. In contrast, the speaker can’t even be relied on to buy cheap “packs” of disposable tissues Her kids didn’t look cared for to the same extent, and she says strangers had to attend to their sniffles. Whether she means this literally or figuratively, she clearly doesn’t think she is as good a mother as her own mother was.
• Still, the speaker’s “material” reality isn’t the same as her mom’s; what she’s mainly feeling, the poem suggests, is that motherhood itself has changed. For one thing, her mother seems to have been a full-time mom, whereas the speaker is rarely “home.” Modern women have much more freedom than women of generations past, but this means they also have more varied responsibilities. The speaker’s apparent full-time job left her unable to give her kids the same “innocen[t]” childhood she had. Regardless of her personal responsibilities, she lives in a time when “TV’s lassitude” and “bought biscuits” (store-brand cookies) formed the “material” of her children’s lives. It’s a different world than the one she was raised in.

Question 3

Modernity, Mass Production, and Dehumanization

Answer 3

• Over the course of “Material,” the shift from cloth to disposable handkerchiefs stands in for a larger, dehumanizing cultural trend. Many other beloved things disappear along with cloth hankies, including friendly neighborhood figures such as the greengrocer and butcher, as well as whole categories of (visible) human emotion. Through these details, the speaker suggests that the modern world jeopardizes many people’s “material” security, along with the very “material” of human life. That is, it treats certain people, feelings, and interactions as disposable.
• In a world of mass production, there’s little room for people to be human: flawed, slow, and quirky. What once would have been considered charming is now simply inconvenient or unprofessional. In this relentless modern economy, people must suppress their idiosyncrasies, functioning more as machines than living, interconnected creatures.

Question 4

My mother was …
… garages and shops,

Answer 4

• “Material” begins with the speaker describing her mother as “a hanky queen.” To say that someone is the “queen” or “king” of something is an idiomatic expression meaning that they’re known for that thing, highly skilled at it, etc. Basically, the speaker’s mom used handkerchiefs all the time!
• The speaker adds that this was back when handkerchiefs were made of cloth rather than paper. Nowadays, people can buy cheap, disposable tissues at pretty much any hour, at any auto shop or corner store: they’re highly accessible and easily replaceable. By contrast, the poem implies that the cloth hankies the speaker’s mother used took more time and money to make and acquire, and one wouldn’t just throw them away when they were done with them.
• These opening lines establish the poem’s form. “Material” is a very musical poem, but it never feels overly controlled or stiff. This is thanks in part to its flexible, springy meter, which often falls into iambic tetrameter: lines of four iambs, poetic feet that follow an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern. This meter will become looser as the poem goes on, and, indeed, it already starts to stray from iambs in line 4. Still, the poem begins with a clear iambic bounce that adds to its light-hearted tone:

Question 5

but things for …
… up her sleeve.

Answer 5

• Unlike the cheap “paper tissues” sold in stores nowadays, the hankies of the speaker’s mother’s era often served a somewhat nobler purpose. They were something you’d wave out of train windows as the train left the station—a romantic, old-fashioned goodbye to those standing on the platform to see you off. They could also be used to “mop[] the corners of your grief”: to elegantly dab away tears.
• The speaker calls these hankies “material,” which refers not just to the fact that they were literally made of fabric rather than flimsy paper. The word suggests that these hankies had more symbolic weight or significance. They were of a time when the stuff of life—and, by implication, life itself—felt less disposable or replaceable.
• The speaker’s mother “always” had a hanky “up her sleeve.” This makes it clear that the speaker wasn’t joking about her mother being a “hanky queen”—she was never without one! The caesurae around “always” add emphasis to this word: there was never any doubt that this woman would have a handkerchief ready to go.

Question 6

Tucked in the …
… against my face.

Answer 6

• These weren’t plain, simple cloths, either. They had “a mum’s embarrassment of lace.” To have an “embarrassment” of something means to have an excessive amount—these hankies were very frilly. They were also “embroidered with a V for Viv,” which readers can assume refers to the mother’s name. Clearly, these hankies were important to the speaker’s mother. Unlike packs of disposable tissues from the store, these hankies meant something to her and they had personality.
• Of course, the language also implies that these hankies were totally “embarrassing” to the speaker. Saying a “mum’s embarrassment” nods to the way that children, across generations, are so often mortified by their parents’ old-fashioned ways. These frilly, embroidered hankies were totally uncool in the speaker’s mind.
• The alliteration and consonance of these lines (“mum’s embarrassment,” “embroidered”) make them feel muffled or murmured, like someone trying to say something quietly so they won’t be overheard, subtly evoking the speaker’s humiliation at the sight of these hankies.
• Adding insult to injury, the speaker’s mother would take these quaint little cloths out, dampen them with spit, and then vigorously rub the speaker’s face clean. The word “spittled” is also evocative; not so long ago, people didn’t have easy access to wet wipes and paper tissues. Instead, they’d wet their hankies with their own saliva and “scrub[]” away.

Question 6

And sometimes more …
… raising little squares.

Answer 6

• The speaker remembers that sometimes a bunch of hankies would come tumbling out of her mother’s sleeve all at once (no doubt adding to the speaker’s embarrassment!). The speaker then uses a humorous simile to illustrate just how many hankies her mother had, jokingly implying the only possible explanation was that she had a hanky “farm” up her sleeve and was breeding them like horses.
• The speaker personifies the hankies, describing the “dried-up” ones falling in love, getting together, and having little hanky babies. This image of cute little hanky families imbues the handkerchiefs of the speaker’s mother’s era with much more personality than the lifeless, mass-produced tissues people use nowadays. It also connects the cloth hankies to what the speaker seems to view as a simpler time, when life revolved around getting married and having babies.
• Readers will later learn that the speaker harbors insecurities about not being a stay-at-home mom or taking good enough care of her children. Despite being a joke, then, this image of happy hanky families also likely reflects her very real insecurities and nostalgia for a supposedly more wholesome past.

Question 7

She bought her …
… gift you’d get—

Answer 7

• The speaker’s mother “bought her own” hankies, while the speaker never purchased any (either for her mother or for herself). The caesura created by the semi-colon between “She bought her own” and “I never did” emphasizes the difference between the speaker and her mother. It’s not just that her mother bought hankies and she didn’t; it’s that this particular difference illustrates a significant generational divide. The things her parents’ generation valued seemed outdated and silly to the speaker.
• This doesn’t mean that the speaker didn’t own any handkerchiefs, however. She seems to have had plenty, saying that they “were presents from distant aunts”—impersonal gifts sent from family members the speaker likely didn’t see often nor know well. The hankies would arrive in fancy “boxed sets, with transparent covers / and script initials spelling ponce.” “Ponce” is a derogatory term that in this context just means pretentious or feminine in a kind of exaggerated way. The speaker found these monogrammed hankies utterly unfashionable and embarrassing, and the hissing sibilance of these lines conveys the speaker’s distaste for these stuffy gifts:
• These hanky gift sets were, in fact, “the naffest” (or most tacky, unfashionable) “gift you’d get.” The fricative /f/ consonance (“naffest,” gift”) and guttural /g/ alliteration (“gift,” “get”) further evoke the speaker’s disdain, as if she’s still scoffing at these horrid presents.

Question 8

my brothers too, …
… had more snot.

Answer 8

• It wasn’t just the girls who would be given hankies in the speaker’s family. The speaker says that her brothers would get “male ones”—that is, more traditionally masculine handkerchiefs. These would be more “serious” than the speaker’s own, “grey” in color, “and larger, like they had more snot.” The difference in hanky design reflects the gender norms of the speaker’s mother’s day. Girls’ hankies were frilly, lacy, and embroidered with fanciful script, while boys’ were more substantial and practical.
• Though the speaker is making a joke about the differences between male and female hankies, the emphasis on words like “serious” and “larger” suggest that these differences were emblematic of broader cultural beliefs about men and women. Earlier, the speaker’s image of hankies falling in love and “raising little squares” evoked the family values of her mother’s era. Now, the speaker points out that the past was also a time when society took men more “serious[ly]” than women. The speaker has complicated feelings about the past, in part longing for the comfort she felt during her childhood while also recognizing that her mother’s world was, in many ways, not a place the speaker would actually want to inhabit.

Question 9

It was hankies …
… today in malls.

Answer 9

• The speaker declares that “hankies” were the things “that closed department stores.” This is a bold declaration that ascribes quite a lot of power to little pieces of cloth! Hankies didn’t literally take down department stores, of course. What the speaker means by this is that, when people stopped buying old-fashioned hankies, the stores that sold them and other outdated goods lost customers and eventually were forced to close their doors.
• Contributing to this demise were other “homely props” (or everyday objects one would use at home) such as “headscarves, girdles” (a kind of shapewear used for molding the waist), and “knitting wool / and trouser presses” (a device used to smooth out pants), all of which went out of fashion alongside the hanky. The speaker says “you’d never find” such items “today in malls.” Nowadays, people expect to see cheaper, more efficient, and more disposable merchandise.

Question 10

Hankies, which demanded …
… buy them died.

Answer 10

• The speaker explains that part of the reason hankies went out of fashion is because they were simply a hassle to use. They had to be ironed, and cleaning them required boiling them in water. In a changing, fast-paced world, they ceased to be convenient. People turned to disposable tissues instead, and thus hankies “shuttered the doors of family stores” when the generation of people who once used them passed away.
• That these were “family stores” once again links the world of the speaker’s mother’s generation with a certain set of cultural values. The poem implies that something important was lost when these shops went out of business.
• Of course, hankies weren’t literally, wholly responsible for the closure of these stores. The speaker is being hyperbolic, and the hanky represents an entire way of life that just couldn’t compete as generations demanded faster, cheaper, more disposable things. Those humble, family-owned shops got wiped out by impersonal retail chains selling mass-produced products.

Question 11

And somehow, with …
… of local crab

Answer 11

• The speaker makes clear that the disappearance of the hanky isn’t just about the hanky itself—it’s about the loss of an entire way of life, one that was slower and a lot more personal.
• As the world changed, various jobs and interactions disappeared. Gone was the local “greengrocer” (a person who sells fresh produce), for example, no doubt replaced by a supermarket. The speaker takes care to note that this man’s name was George and that he used to deliver his produce to customers from his camper van. The mention of George’s “dodgy foot” suggests he was dealing with a physical disability, something that would make it difficult for him to work in today’s grocery stores, where workers stand on their feet for long periods of time, lifting and moving products with little control over their schedules.
• Though the speaker is talking about a specific person here, George, like the hanky, represents a bygone era more broadly. The mention of the greengrocer nods to a time when industry was less streamlined and rigid; people knew each other by name and thus were more likely to accept each other’s quirks and limitations rather than expecting random people to operate as mindless machines.
• The greengrocer isn’t the only one who has been relegated to “history.” The speaker says there used to be a “friendly butcher” who’d send home “extra sausage” for free, as well as a “fishmonger”—someone who sells fish and seafood. Nowadays people often go to grocery stores that sell meat, seafood, and produce all in one place, but not so long ago these were separate businesses run by individuals or families. People would often get to know their local vendors.

Question 12

lay opposite the …
… point!

Answer 12

• The poem’s form thus subtly conveys the closeness and community of this old-fashioned world. It’s not hard to imagine that Mrs. White and the fishmonger knew each other; after all, they likely saw each other every day! The poem implies that the loss of this closeness in the modern world alienates people from each other.
• The speaker then describes what, exactly, would go on at this dancing school. Mrs. White would pound a song from what certainly sounds like a barely functioning piano. This again suggests just how different the world used to be. Things weren’t always shiny and new, and they didn’t always operate perfectly. Back then, the poem implies, people had more patience with each other and were more willing to make do with what they had (the “material” they were given).
• Meanwhile, the mention of the specific song “When You’re Smiling,” like the vibrant imagery of the fish market, emphasizes just how vivid this memory remains for the speaker. She can still hear that song played on that “out of tune piano.” She can also recall Mrs. White instructing the kids in her class to “step-together, step-together, step-together / point!” Epizeuxis (the immediate repetition of “step-together”) helps to evoke the crisp movement of all these tiny legs dancing in unison.

Question 13

The Annual Talent …
… from little dears.

Answer 13

• Every year, the speaker continues, there would be a “Talent Show” where the children performed for their community (likely whipping out the moves they learned in Mrs. White’s dancing school). All the mothers in the crowd would inevitably be “fencing tears,” a playful metaphor for the way they desperately sought to keep from crying (“fencing” refers to the sport of sword fighting, so the mothers are fighting back tears of emotion). Ever prepared, they’d then “whip a hanky from their sleeve” to wipe the blush off of their kids’ faces after the performance.
• These mothers were clearly proud of their “little dears,” a sweet, if deliberately cutesy, phrase that conveys the swell of affection these moms felt for their children. The image of moms “smudg[ing] the rouge from their little dears” also echoes the earlier scene of the speaker’s mother “scrub[ing]” a hanky “against [the speaker’s] face.” Hankies aren’t just associated with her own mother, it seems, but with motherhood in general. Pulling out the hanky was clearly a familiar gesture, even a comforting ritual in hindsight. Hankies appeared in moments of genuine human feeling and were often the connecting “material” between two people. Here, they link the mothers with their children and were a medium for expressing love and care.

Question 14

Nostalgia only makes …
… to being home.

Answer 14

• So far, the speaker has spent more than half of the poem reminiscing about the world of her childhood—the world as it was “when hanky meant a thing of cloth.” Now she returns to the present, admitting that all this “Nostalgia only makes [her] old.” That is, she recognizes that the world she’s been fondly describing is long gone—and so, too, is her childhood.
• More specifically, it was “killed in TV’s lassitude.” “Lassitude” refers to laziness or weariness. The TV isn’t really the thing that’s weary here, however; the word might refer to the kids, who prefer to spend their time in front of a screen (where they are perhaps bombarded with images of violence, war, and so on) rather than playing. It also might refer to the speaker, who admits that she put the TV on in the first place, presumably to entertain her kids and give herself a break.
• Saying “And it was me that turned it on” implies that the speaker feels guilty for letting her kids watch TV. Likewise, she feels guilty about eating store-bought cookies rather than baking them herself, which she could do if she’d “commit to being home.” That is, she could bake cookies if she were a stay-at-home mom, presumably like her own mother was.
• Of course, while the poem doesn’t say it explicitly, her mother being home reflected the more rigid gender roles of her era (also hinted at earlier in the poem with the mention of boys receiving more “serious” hankies). The speaker raised her own children at a time when more had started to work outside the home, and she certainly wouldn’t be the first exhausted parent to sit her kids down in front of the TV so that she could get a little time to herself. While many of these changes speak to advanced freedom for women, it’s also fair to say that modern mothers in some ways have more on their plates; it isn’t realistic to expect they can handle careers and fulfill all the same roles their mothers did. Still, the speaker mourns the fact that her kids will never experience the kind of “innocence” that she did.

Question 15

There’s never a …
… and hidden history.

Answer 15

• she “raised neglected-looking kids.” This is likely more hyperbole, as is her description of her kids being “the kind whose noses strangers clean” (i.e., because she never has a hanky on hand). Still, it implies that she feels like she’s nowhere near as attentive as her own mother was. She’s not there to mop up every one of her kids’ little messes.
• She then wonders why she feels so weird about just buying a pack of tissues to keep in her purse. Even if she doesn’t have time to boil and iron a hanky, paper tissues come in “handy” packs and cost just “50p” (pence)—next to nothing. Yet the speaker can’t bring herself to carry them, and she doesn’t entirely seem to know why.
• The stanza’s final two lines suggest the answer, however, as the speaker admits that she misses “material handkerchiefs” and the “soft and hidden history” they evoke. The phrase “soft and hidden history” plays on the fact that hankies themselves are soft pieces of cloth and that they’re part of a softer, gentler world: one where people made cookies from scratch and knew their local greengrocer. “Hidden” might also nod to the fact that the kind of “history” evidenced by these hankies isn’t the kind that gets written about in books or taught in schools. Instead, the speaker is referring to the small, intimate moments that make up a life.

Question 15

But it isn’t …
… tissues and uncertainty:

Answer 15

• The speaker recognizes she’ll someday need to let her mother go, too—that is, she’ll have to stop clinging so tightly to her memory.
• She then reveals that her mother “died not leaving handkerchiefs / but tissues and uncertainty.” In other words, although her mother may have been a “hanky queen” in the speaker’s youth, even she couldn’t resist the changing tides of the world around her. She adapted to the new reality she found herself in, just as the speaker will have to do.
• The fact that she left “uncertainty” behind also emphasizes her humanity. Throughout the poem, the speaker has presented her mother as extremely doting and caring, if a little embarrassing at times. Now, though, the speaker acknowledges that even her mother wasn’t immune to doubt or anxiety—about her parenting skills, perhaps, the future, or her own death.
• Leaving “uncertainty” might also mean that the speaker now feels lost without her mother—her mother “left” her with uncertainty. The speaker’s mother may have done everything she could for the speaker, but ultimately the speaker has to figure out how to deal with the future without her—and the same will be true for her own kids one day.

Question 16

and she would …

Answer 16

• In the poem’s final lines, the speaker imagines what her mother would say if she were to hear her daughter “complain / of the scratchy and disposable.” Here, “scratchy and disposable” paper tissues come to symbolize the “scratchy and disposable” nature of modern life more generally. The “materials” of the modern world are often cheap, flimsy, and designed to be thrown away, contrasting with the “soft,” personalized hankies of the past. This, in turn, reflects the relative franticness, alienation, and dehumanization of modern life.
• The speaker imagines that her mother would tell her, “this is your material / to do with, daughter, what you will.” Essentially, her mother is saying that this is her life and that if “the scratchy and disposable” is all she has to work with, she will just have to make the best of it. Everyone’s lives are made up of the “material” reality of the world around them, so there’s no sense wishing the world were different than it is.
• The mother’s words are also perhaps an invitation: the speaker can do “what [she] will” with her life. She has the power to decide how she will live, what values she will adhere to, what things she will prioritize.
• Of course, the poem is also subtly hinting at the fact that the speaker/poet is someone who is writing about her life. In this way, the “material”—the tangible conditions of her life—is also her material—what she has to work with—as an artist. This might thus suggest her desire to transform “the scratchy and disposable” into something durable and meaningful (like her mother’s hankies): the poem.

Question 17

The Hanky

Answer 17

• Growing up, the speaker found hankies unfashionable and embarrassing, a relic of a bygone era. But as an adult, the speaker comes to view the hankies as a symbol of a slower, gentler way of life. They also represent the speaker’s mother’s tender care for her children.
• Hankies, unlike modern “paper tissues,” were made of “cloth.” People held onto the same hanky for years, putting in the effort to wash and iron it. These durable hankies represent a time when life itself seemed less “disposable.” People cared more for each other in the past, the poem implies, while in the modern day, people care most about convenience.
• Hankies also reflected the personality of the person who carried them. Though some hankies were “serious, and grey,” others, like the speaker’s mother’s, were lacy and embroidered in fancy script. This, in turn, speaks to a less homogenous past—a time filled with individuals and rough edges. Unlike the perfect, streamlined supermarkets and malls of the modern day, the era of the hankies was one when quirky characters like the “greengrocer George” could get by selling produce out of his camper van and “Mrs White” could teach dance on an “out of tune piano.” Family shops still existed, not yet steamrolled by the mass production of identical products sold in identical stores.
• The speaker says that hankies recall a “soft and hidden history,” suggesting that the past was both somehow gentler and also getting harder and harder to see. The world has moved on; handkerchiefs have disappeared, along with the slower, more interconnected world they represent.

Question 18

Paper tissues

Answer 18

• If hankies represent a way of life that has faded into the past, then the “paper tissues” that replaced them symbolize the convenience, anonymity, and coldness of the modern world.
• Unlike the unique, durable, and demanding cloth hanky, paper tissues are “scratchy and disposable.” They aren’t “presents from distant aunts” and they aren’t “Tucked” safely in people’s “sleeve[s].” Rather, tissues are “bought in packs / from late-night garages and shops” for “50p.” In other words, they’re cheap and readily available because people use them once and throw them away. They aren’t made to withstand the passage of time, and as such, they have no real value or significance beyond their hygienic use.
• These disposable tissues suggest the world has become a place that prioritizes ease of production, price, and convenience over taking pride in one’s work, caring for each other, and investing in things that last. To the speaker, the shift from hankies to paper tissues reflected a shift from a warm, slow, meaningful world to one where life itself feels cheap and replaceable.

Question 19

Form

Answer 19

• “Material” is made up of 72 lines divided into nine stanzas. The majority of these stanzas are octaves, meaning they have eight lines each. Stanzas 6 and 7 are irregular, having nine and seven lines respectively, but overall stanza lengths feel pretty consistent. For the most part, stanzas are self-contained, with the exception of stanzas 5 and 6, which are connected by enjambment:
• The enjambment here mimics what the poem describes: the description of the fishmonger’s shop is located just above—”opposite”—that of the dancing school.
• The poem also features plenty of colloquial language (including quite a bit of slang). This makes the poem sound modern and conversational, but there’s also some tension between the poem’s casual language and its fixed stanza length, bouncy meter, and steady rhyme scheme—all of which are features more common in older poetry. The push and pull between more formal and looser verse might subtly reflect the speaker’s nostalgia for her mother’s era: a time when hankies were made of cloth and the world, in hindsight, felt more familiar and predictable.

Question 19

Rhyme Scheme

Answer 19

• “Material” follows an ABCBDEFE rhyme scheme throughout. Each stanza can essentially be broken into two quatrains in which the second and fourth lines rhyme with each other while the first and third lines do not.
• This is a very common rhyme scheme in poetry, often seen in hymns and nursery rhymes. It adds sweet, lighthearted music to the poem, which fits right in with the speaker’s nostalgia for a simpler past. Many of the poem’s rhymes are slant: “cloth”/”shops,” “aunts”/”ponce,” etc. These imperfect rhymes keep the poem feeling a little more down-to-earth than clear, perfect rhymes all the way through otherwise might.