Mother Any Distance By Armitage

Another poem which conceives the theme of loss is “Mother, Any Distance”. The link between them is the grief of when the child has to move on and find their own path moving away from their old home and family. This is conveyed through “ I reached towards the hatch”, where Armitage uses the verb “reach” to amplify that it still has to take effort for the persona to be able to retrieve what he wants. By reaching towards the hatch, he is moving away from something, linking to the context, it could be suggested that he is moving away from his mother which can prove the loss in his relationship with his mother as he grows up. Enjambment in stanza two allows the readers to foresee an image in their head in relation to the poem. The lines are stretched out within the stanza like a tape measure spread out in the house and the staircases. Not only does Armitage use this visual technique to structure the poem, but “The line still feeding out” representing this structural image. “The line” is the tape measure being fed out can be seen as the persona is pulling away from his mother but still has a string connected to her, however, there is another way to see this; a timeline of their memories together being stretched, time still moving along and one day the tape measure will reach its limit and end. The more the line feeds out the more
The verb “space-walk” creates a visual image of the son mindlessly wandering within the new bedroom, which is important because the persona is alienated from the new room that he’s unfamiliar with. Armitage uses the adjective “empty” meaning that the persona feels “empty” and confused with his decision of whether or not to reach out for his future and move on. There is a sense of loss because if he decides to move on and pursue his hopes and dreams in the future he will lose his innocence; damaging his relationship with his