Walking Away Flashcards
What type of poem is it?
Familial
What are the key themes?
- Memories
- Independence
- Parent child relationship
- Distance
- Growing up
Key quotes for memories?
“,almost to the day-“ & “leaves just turning” - trying to remember and bring himself back to this time, remembers time period, this moment changed him as he’s remembering it, hasn’t blocked it out or been forgotten so it meant something to him
Key quotes for independence?
“Love is proved in the letting go.” - full stop makes it feel like a hard truth, hard to accept but it’s true, to let go is to love, it’s inevitable, full stop is also like a foreshadowing or a foreboding sense of independence having to happen
Key quotes for parent child relationship?
“- since I watched you play” - looking at child, not participating in the fun, looking at his son was enough to satisfy speaker and make him happy
Key quotes for distance?
“Behind a scatter of boys. I can see” - the caesura emphasises the distance, the father is trying to find his son but something in blocking him, still trying to catch the last glimpse of son no matter how hard, would sacrifice anything for him, wants to see son before he starts truly growing up
Key quotes for growing up?
“A half fledged thing set free into the wilderness”
“Like a satellite / wrenched from its orbit”
“Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem”
All of these quotes have natural/animal imagery, all of these suggest a foreboding and inescapable outcome of growing up, wildness and danger, “free into the wilderness” and “wretched from its orbit” and “loosened from its parent stem”, all of these quotes leave on a cliffhanger of what happens next but it can be assumed that the next bit of the story continues with some sort of danger, letting your child grow up is hard as it’ll encounter many issues and dangers in life
