Unseen Poetry 2013 (page 17)
Notes – all questions worth 10 marks –
answers will not be as long as unseen
drama!
(a)
protective / aware of dangers / but supportive of child growing
up
From
reading the poem, I get the impression that the parent is protective and aware
of the dangers facing her daughter.
When the poet says,
“you grew smaller, more breakable with distance”, it is clear that she is
anxious about the child. This
kind of fear is natural for any parent.
However,
the parent is also supportive of her daughter growing up and moving on with her
life. She
recognises that her daughter is happy and excited with this new part of her
life when she says, “screaming with laughter”. The
poet herself is not thrilled, but she is not trying to hold her daughter
back.
(b)
bike / way of explaining
At
first, I was surprised by the title. I had expected the poem to be about an
adult daughter leaving home.
The opening statement,
however, talks about “When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle.”
It seemed odd as the
eight year old hardly left home straight
away.
However, on my second reading, I
realised the poet was using the memory of teaching her daughter to ride a bike
as a way of discussing her adult daughter leaving. The
last image – “a handkerchief waving goodbye” – reinforces the idea that
something more permanent that cycling lessons is being discussed. When
I spotted this, the title made much more sense.
(c)
I
very much enjoyed Pastan’s style of writing. She made very clever use of
onomatopoeia in the middle section of the poem. She
uses words like “thud”, “crash”, and “screaming”.
These words added to
my sense of the poem as I could hear it more clearly.
She
also uses a simile in the closing lines of the poem.
She compares her
daughter’s flapping hair to “a handkerchief waving goodbye”. Given
the topic of the poem, this is a very appropriate simile.
Notes – all questions worth 10 marks –
answers will not be as long as unseen
drama!
(a)
protective / aware of dangers / but supportive of child growing
up
From
reading the poem, I get the impression that the parent is protective and aware
of the dangers facing her daughter.
When the poet says,
“you grew smaller, more breakable with distance”, it is clear that she is
anxious about the child. This
kind of fear is natural for any parent.
However,
the parent is also supportive of her daughter growing up and moving on with her
life. She
recognises that her daughter is happy and excited with this new part of her
life when she says, “screaming with laughter”. The
poet herself is not thrilled, but she is not trying to hold her daughter
back.
(b)
bike / way of explaining
At
first, I was surprised by the title. I had expected the poem to be about an
adult daughter leaving home.
The opening statement,
however, talks about “When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle.”
It seemed odd as the
eight year old hardly left home straight
away.
However, on my second reading, I
realised the poet was using the memory of teaching her daughter to ride a bike
as a way of discussing her adult daughter leaving. The
last image – “a handkerchief waving goodbye” – reinforces the idea that
something more permanent that cycling lessons is being discussed. When
I spotted this, the title made much more sense.
(c)
I
very much enjoyed Pastan’s style of writing. She made very clever use of
onomatopoeia in the middle section of the poem. She
uses words like “thud”, “crash”, and “screaming”.
These words added to
my sense of the poem as I could hear it more clearly.
She
also uses a simile in the closing lines of the poem.
She compares her
daughter’s flapping hair to “a handkerchief waving goodbye”. Given
the topic of the poem, this is a very appropriate simile.