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OCR Examination Board
GCSE English Literature
A664 - Literary Heritage & Poetry
Carol Ann Duffy –
Revision notes
Answer
A video lecture on YouTube-
Duffy is writing about love in a non-clichéd manner. There is an implied, rather enigmatic, question to which this poem is the answer: “Will you marry me?”; “Will I always love you?”; “Would I still love you if…?” She uses the traditional idea of the four elements which supposedly made up the whole world – earth, air, fire and water - showing that her love totally encompasses the person addressed in the poem.
All of the stanzas all have the same structure and meter / rhythm; this regular, constant form helps to reflect her constant, unchanging love. It is calm and considered, not impulsive and fragile. The answer at the end of each stanza is always a very affirmative yes, yes repeated for extra emphasis. It is eager and enthusiastic – the words every lover wants to hear.
stone –is used for ‘earth’ – but it is not fertile and life-giving as ‘soil’.
All of the images in the first stanza suggest a lifelessness and lack of passion. There is no chance of a living, loving sexual relationship and yet her love would persist; she would continue to love this person even though they are incapable of returning that love.
Duffy describes various parts of her love’s anatomy:
your kiss a fossil -lips are metaphorically dead - not sexually responsive.
eyes sightless marble - can’t even see her.
grey hands - implying a statue, so can’t touch her.
legs cold as rivers locked in ice- simile - cold and frigid.
The fire images of the second stanza are ugly, painful and threatening. Even if her lover was violent and abusive she would continue to love him / her.
Again, Duffy describes various parts of her love’s anatomy:
head…Medusa hissing flame – image of the snake-haired monster; effective onomatopoeia for flames & snakes.
tongue a red-hot poker – an instrument of torture, invoking the idea of Hell.
heart a small coal – not living and capable of love.
fingers burning pungent brands on flesh – producing terrible pain & the stench of burning flesh with each touch.
The water images of the third stanza are all dangerous and threatening, again, perhaps even more deadly.
Again, Duffy describes various parts of her love’s anatomy:
voice…roaring, foaming –adjectives imply violence, uncontrolled anger in their voice –ranting and raving.
arms a whirlpool spinning me… - violent metaphor and dangerous verb.
breast…deep dark lake nursing the drowned– ominous adjectives, deadly image.
The last one of the four elements, air, gives a sense of emptiness; there is a feeling that there is no physical body left at all.
face empty…infinite as sky – the face is the most significant part of the body, but there nothing there to see.
words a wind – again, emptiness; the alliteration gives the idea of the sounds being scattered, creating silence.
The image is extended with gusts and breeze there is nothing physically present of the person to love or be loved, and yet her devotion persists.
The final stanza is a repetition, an emphatic reiteration of what had been said before. She has no hesitation in giving this answer which has the tone of a sacred vow. There is a final, grim surprise at the end – she would love this person even if it meant her death.
Before You Were Mine
Avideo lecture on YouTube -
This is one of the nostalgic poems in the anthology. We can infer that Duffy is looking at a photograph of her mother and her two friends ten years before she was born. The title fools us at first into thinking of romantic lovers, but it shows the deep love of a mother and daughter. She imagines her mother as a rebellious teenager, going out on dates and being punished for coming home late. Duffy thinks about how her birth changed her mother’s life forever, putting an end to these ‘glory days’, the best days of her life when she was young and carefree.
I’m ten years away from – an unusual way of opening the poem; it takes a while before we work out that she is directly addressing her mother in the photograph.
corner…laugh…pals…shriek – joyful images ofteenagers having a good time, hanging around on the street.
Maggie McGeeney…Jean Duff…holding each other – idea created of close friendship; mother must have talked about her friends because her daughter knows their names.
polka-dot dress – this dates the photograph; the style was very fashionable back then.
Marilyn – flattering, maybe slightly-tongue-in-cheek, reference to the iconic image of the 50’s & 60’s film star Marilyn Munroe holding down her dress. She thinks of her mother as glamorous, sexy and exciting.
The second stanza begins in a similar way to the first, reminding us that her child is not born, but is on its way in ten years’ time.She is still having fun, but this time the focus is not on her friends but on boyfriends.
ballroom– before discos, the big public venues where teenagers danced & dated.
…thousand eyes – might be the large crowd or a spinning mirror ball.
movie…walk home – meeting a boy who takes her home and asks her out on a date to the cinema.
Ma…waits in the street and gives her a hiding for being late. She likes to paint an affectionate picture of her mother as a rebel, someone with enthusiasm for life.
The third stanza makes very clear the idea of her birth changing her mother’s life.
loud, possessive yell – an unpleasant noise that cannot be ignored. The new baby demands all of her attention. It gives a negative twist to the phrase before you were mine – Duffy implies that she completely dominated her mother’s life and, in a way, ruined it.
The decade…was the best one, eh? – she imagines her mother looking back wistfully, maybe with some regret, to the carefree teenage years prior to motherhood – the best years of her life.
She is wearing high-heeled red shoes in the photograph. Red shoes are associated with women wanting to look attractive and exciting, the shoes they wear going out parties and having a good time.
Duffy remembers the shoes from her childhood. She chooses the word relics to imply that they are now just reminders of her mother’s youth, useless except as playthings for her little girl – my hands in those…shoes.
The red shoes were associated in the past with scent (perfume) and small (love) bites – Duffy affectionately (sweetheart) imagines her mother wearing them out on a date.
The final stanza continues to explore the idea of Duffy’s relationship with her mother after she was born.
Cha cha cha – Duffy affectionately remembers her mother teaching her old dance steps, a reminder of her own days in the ballroom. They seem to have a happy relationship.
stamping stars from the wrong pavement – strong visual memories of stiletto heels making sparks on the paving slabs, the wrong ones because this may have been rebellious, inappropriate behaviour in the eyes of the other members of the congregation at Mass.
bold girl winking – as with the dancing, Duffy wanted her mother to retain the high spirits and enthusiasm for life that she had in her youth.
That glamorous love lasts…sparkle…waltz…laugh – even though they are in the past, at least those good times existed and continue to exist in memories before you were mine and the carefree young rebel had to make sacrifices and assume the responsibilities of motherhood.
Brothers
This is another nostalgic autobiographical family poem looking at her relationship with her four brothers (Irish Roman Catholic family). There are the happy memories of shared in-jokes, but a gradual distancing as they grow up and apart. She remembers their lives together but does not seem to be that close to them any more. One of them did something to break her mother’s heart. She still has things in common with her brothers, but they do not keep in touch much now. She ends with the image of a family funeral in the future, presumably one of their parents, though both were alive when she wrote the poem.
The opening stanza focuses on how close the bond was between the members of the family.
I slept…with four men – surprising opening if we had not read the title. It was a common experience of poverty.
share / an older face – they look like one of their parents.
laugh, even now, random quotes from the play we were in – the humorous repetition of things parents said in the past; the use of the image of a play makes it seem the comical words are recorded not forgotten in the present.
They grin and nod - and they certainly had fun together.
What was possible retreats and shrinks – their dreams may not have been fulfilled; the optimism of youth fades. Maybe her thoughts of how great her brothers would turn out have soured / become more realistic.
altar boy…practising scales…playing tennis…a baby – she differentiates between them, summing them up concisely - they shrink.
Like a new sound flailing for a shape – a wonderful simile to evoke the idea of the youngest brother struggling to be recognised, given some attention. There is a hint of discontent here; maybe he struggled to find a role in the family.
I don’t have photographs – is that the effect of poverty or a sense of losing contact?
I like to repeat their names – this is a way of remembering them, thinking of them without seeing the real people they have become. It is a way of idealising people and controlling your reactions them.
My mother chose them…her life in the words…breeding words – her relationship with her mother seems more important to her than her relationship with her brothers. Their names are more important than they themselves are because her mother lovingly, specially selected them.
the word that broke her heart – the name of the brother who did something mysterious: Duffy leaves the impression of a sinister, shameful action because it is not described in any detail.
The final stanza looks at her relationship with them in the present, and how, in the future, they might only meet at whole family events like funerals.
Much in common – they still have the family bond, a shared heritage – but,
me – not the usual expression ‘we have much in common’, so she seems to show an awkward sense of separation even though they are still connected.
thieves…businessmen…fathers…UB40s – maybe the idea of the roles that her brothers shrink into which is mentioned in the second stanza.
We have nothing to say of now – in the present (now) they have nothing in common which they can talk about; all that is left is the script, the random quotes from theplay of their childhood, their family life in the past (then).
time owns us – this suggests that they have had little control over how their relationship has developed, that their lives have been in the hands of Fate. But the word us does still show some sense of unity.
How tall they have grown – we only notice this if we haven’t seen somebody for a long time – or is it that they are more real in her warm memories of them as young children rather than in the stark, cold reality of adulthood?
a box – a grim image of a coffin at a future funeral. This is a very pessimistic, bleak thought that these might be the only times that they will meet in the future. She thinks that she will be the one who organises and pays for the funeral – they will have the physical, different burden of shouldering the coffin.
Dream of a Lost Friend
Duffy addresses her friend, telling them of a dream she had about them dying from HIV, which they have already contracted. In the 1980’s, HIV seemed inevitably to lead to AIDS and death. The idea of dreaming is reflected in the settings, the fragments of conversation in italics and the confusing timescale [there is the past, the future in the past but still not the present, the present and the future].
You were dead…we met…before you had died immediately shocking information & confusing timescale of a dream: the sufferer is not really dead yet, but they were in the dream.
Pale…white lips images of ill health & closeness to death – the living death of AIDS.
My dear, my dear, must this be… fragments of conversation – pity for the victim.
A public building a vague location typical of dreams – probably a hospital.
an AIDS poster suspense / tension the first hint that this is about AIDS comes at the end of the first stanza.
Help me stanza ends very dramatically with this desperate plea form the victim.
We embraced obvious show of affection – but in very emotional circumstances. The victim may have just been diagnosed with the illness.
long corridor / which harboured a pain…yet one of those weird dream locations; it will be a place where they both will eventually experience suffering (dying /death / grief) but not at that particular present.
frenzied…hysterical an understandably panicky reaction to the news of being HIV+.
prayers to Chemistry desperate hope by the friend for medication to cure the virus.
It’s only a dream…only a bad dream poet trying to reassure herself that this is not really happening…but in the future (now present) her friend will be HIV+ and will in the future-future, die.
Some of our best friends virus not confined to just one victim. Even though they are rich enough – fashionable restaurants – and living a healthy lifestyle -crudités are raw vegetables –HIV /AIDS is going to kill them – it dreams they dead already – but it is not yet active – idle. There will be a point when they will look back on these good times after they or their friends are ill / dying / dead.
Backed away…waving saying farewell to her friend in the dream; a sense of guilt is shown by I missed your funeral because her friend is not even dead yet in the present.
Thumbs up, acting / Where there’s life… the saying ends ‘there’s hope’; she is keeping up the pretence that there is hope, but there is none.
Awake, alive…almost hopeful out of the dream and back in the present she thinks of how she felt back in the bad dream about her friend, that there might have been hope, but now the friend is doomed. In dreams we are helpless, just as she is helpless watching her friend dying.
Head of English
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Duffy uses a very ironic tone in this poem. It may be that Duffy is getting her revenge for her poor treatment as a ‘visiting poet’ to a school at the hands of a very traditional Head of English. This would have been years before she became the famous Poet Laureate of today.It is dramatic monologue. The voice of the narrator in the poem is that of the teacher introducing the poet to the class and then, in the final stanza, abruptly dismissing both the class and the poet.We can see how Duffy judiciously selects the teacher’s words so that she appears with only negative characteristics: arrogant, narrow-minded, supercilious, offensive, racist, ignorant (of modern poetry), intellectually limited and rude. She is nothing at all like the sensitive, caring, intelligent English teacher that you are privileged to enjoy...
It is a carefully structured poem of five stanzas with six lines in each stanza. However, like the poetry that the Head of English despises, there is no regular rhythm or rhyme scheme. In the first four stanzas, the Head of English is introducing the poet to the class in preparation for the poet’s work with the children. This may be a lecture or a more informal ‘workshop’ session. This should be friendly and welcoming – it is not!
A real live poet...published book – a sarcastic, resentful, smirking, patronising comment.
Notice the inkstained fingers–a critical, inappropriate joke, perhaps about her casual, informalappearance.
hot from the press – piling on the condescension; maybe she is bitterly envious of the poet’s success.
Who knows – one of many short, curt sentences. She is dismissive that they are going to learn anything worthwhile.
clapping. Not too loud / sit up straight and listen…whispering’s out of bounds – anauthoritarian, traditional disciplinarian who dislikes any noise, disruption or children showing their feelings. She is not creating a relaxed atmosphere for the poet to connect with the students.