Poetry Flashcards
(51 cards)
MOTHER ANY DISTANCE Big Idea
The poet presents the mother and son’s relationship as paradoxical - it is both constant and changing.
They’re still connected but are growing apart because of the speaker’s newfound freedom by leaving home.
MOTHER ANY DISTANCE “acres of the walls, the prairies of the floors”
Semantic field of distance
MOTHER ANY DISTANCE “you at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape”
MOTHER ANY DISTANCE “I space-walk through the empty bedrooms”
WALKING AWAY Big Idea
Father and son’s relationship as strong which makes it harder to let go and sacrifice the natures of parental love
WALKING AWAY “like a satellite / Wretched from its orbit, go drifting away”
WALKING AWAY “Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem”
WALKING AWAY “the small, the scorching / Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay
FOLLOWER Big Idea
In Follower, Heaney demonstrates the adoration of the child through his presentation of his father.
FOLLOWER “his shoulders globes like a full sail strung”
FOLLOWER “An expert.”
FOLLOWER “I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake”
BEFORE YOU WERE MINE Big Idea
Duffy presents
BEFORE YOU WERE MINE “Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs, Marilyn.”
BEFORE YOU WERE MINE “I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello, somewhere in Scotland, before I was born.”
BEFORE YOU WERE MINE “glamorous love lasts where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine”
CLIMBING MY GRANDFATHER Big Idea
Waterhouse presents family love as simple and strong; whilst it can be a daunting task of discovering everything about those we love, ultimately the speaker realised he is a good man and admires everything about him
CLIMBING MY GRANDFATHER “I decide to do it free, without a rope or net.”
CLIMBING MY GRANDFATHER “easy scramble onto his trousers… trying to get a grip. By the overhanging shirt… traverse along his belt”
CLIMBING MY GRANDFATHER “like warm ice.”
CLIMBING MY GRANDFATHER “feeling his heat, knowing the slow pulse of his good heart”
EDEN ROCK Big Idea
Causley presents separation and loss in Eden Rock as something that can be resolved in death
EDEN ROCK “sprigged dress… ribbon in her straw hat… stiff white cloth over the grass… her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light”
EDEN ROCK “
