Vivid Memories
Duffy and Lochhead both write about memories.
Compare and contrast two poems, one by each poet, taking account of the methods (situation, form and structure, and language, including imagery and tones) which each poet uses to write about their memories.
Everyone has vivid memories of positive and negative experiences they have gone through. These memories often are often more than just nostalgia but an insight into what shaped us into who were are today. Duffy and Lochhead are no different and use memories of their childhood as inspiration for their poetry. Lochhead’s ‘Lanarkshire Girls’ recalls her bus journey from her hometown into the bustling city of Glasgow. The journey Duffy remembers in ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ is over the course of her final year in primary school. Both journeys symbolise the speakers’ transitions from childhood into adolescence and how that impacted them. Both poems are autobiographical. However, the poets try to include the reader in the memory by using different methods. Duffy uses second-person pronouns throughout, placing the reader into the centre of the story. Lochhead uses the present continuous form of verbs, making the memory more immediate. In this way, both poems try to evoke understanding and pathos from the reader. Memories are often full of complex emotions. This is reflected in the shifting tones of both poems. In Duffy’s ‘In Mrs Tilcsher’s Class’, the speaker is being completely enchanted by the ‘enthralling books’ and where ‘Mrs Tilscher loved you’. The mood changes in the final stanza when the speaker becomes ‘impatient to be grown’. The verb here suggests both eagerness and anxiety. Lochhead’s speaker is also excited about her journey, epitomised by the line ‘dreaming ourselves up’. However, like Duffy’s poem, there is also an undercurrent of anxiety, particularly in the description of nature as ‘futtered’ and ‘splintering’, both quite violent verbs. The bright colours in both poems suggest that both memories are
Compare and contrast two poems, one by each poet, taking account of the methods (situation, form and structure, and language, including imagery and tones) which each poet uses to write about their memories.
Everyone has vivid memories of positive and negative experiences they have gone through. These memories often are often more than just nostalgia but an insight into what shaped us into who were are today. Duffy and Lochhead are no different and use memories of their childhood as inspiration for their poetry. Lochhead’s ‘Lanarkshire Girls’ recalls her bus journey from her hometown into the bustling city of Glasgow. The journey Duffy remembers in ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ is over the course of her final year in primary school. Both journeys symbolise the speakers’ transitions from childhood into adolescence and how that impacted them. Both poems are autobiographical. However, the poets try to include the reader in the memory by using different methods. Duffy uses second-person pronouns throughout, placing the reader into the centre of the story. Lochhead uses the present continuous form of verbs, making the memory more immediate. In this way, both poems try to evoke understanding and pathos from the reader. Memories are often full of complex emotions. This is reflected in the shifting tones of both poems. In Duffy’s ‘In Mrs Tilcsher’s Class’, the speaker is being completely enchanted by the ‘enthralling books’ and where ‘Mrs Tilscher loved you’. The mood changes in the final stanza when the speaker becomes ‘impatient to be grown’. The verb here suggests both eagerness and anxiety. Lochhead’s speaker is also excited about her journey, epitomised by the line ‘dreaming ourselves up’. However, like Duffy’s poem, there is also an undercurrent of anxiety, particularly in the description of nature as ‘futtered’ and ‘splintering’, both quite violent verbs. The bright colours in both poems suggest that both memories are