Ace Your Literature

(Form 4)

The Living Photograph

Jackie Kay

The Living Photograph

(Jackie Kay)
The Poet
Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1961 to a Scottish
mother and a Nigerian father. She was adopted by a white couple at birth
and was brought up in Glasgow, studying at the Royal Scottish Academy
of Music and Drama and Stirling University where she read English. She
also Studied.
Her first novel, Trumpet, published in 1998, was awarded the Guardian
Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin
Literary Award. Inspired by the life of musician Billy Tipton, the novel
tells the story of Scottish jazz trumpeter Joss Moody whose death
revealed that he was, in fact, a woman. Kay develops the narrative
through the voices of Moody's wife, his adopted son and a journalist
from a tabloid newspaper.
Her books, Why Don't You Stop Talking (2002), Wish I Was Here (2006),
and Reality, Reality (2012) are collections of short stories, and she has
also published a novel for children, Strawgirl (2002). Her collection of
poetry for children, Red, Cherry Red (2007) won the 2008 CLPE Poetry
Award

Introduction
The living photograph
is about a grandchild
looking at a
photograph of his/her
departed grandmother
and remembering her.
Even though the
grandmother is gone,
the photograph keeps
her alive in the
grandchilds memory.

Stanza 1
Line 1: My grandmother is tall there.
The word there refers to the old
photograph.
Line 2: Straight back, white broderie
anglaise shirt
Line 3: Pleated skirt, flat shoes, grey bun
Grandmother wears a white embroided
shirt, a pleated skirt and flat shoes. Her
hair is tied up in a bun.

Line 4: A kind, old smile round her eyes

Grandmother eyes look kind.
Line 5: Her big hand holds mine
Line 6: white hand in black hand
Grandmother is holding the granchilds white
hand in her black one. This tells us that the
grandchild may be of mixed parentage.

Line 7: Her sharp blue eyes look her own

death in the eye.
Grandmother has sharp blue eyes and
they seem to look at death without fear.
This reveals that grandmother is growing
old and death is unavoidable.

Stanza 2
Line 8: It was true after all; that look
was how she remembers her grandmother
used to be or the look that a grandmother
give that she was expecting death was true.

Has become smaller in size

Line 9 : My tall grandmother became

small.
Line Line
Line 10: Her back round and hunched.
Grandmother becomes shorter as her back
grows bent with age.

Line 11: She went to the awful place

grandmothers go.
Line 12: Somewhere unknown,
unthinkable.
Her soup forgot to boil forgetful, senile,
signs of dementia
She passes away and goes to a place that
is unimaginable to the persona

Stanza 3
Line 13: But there she is still,
Line 14: In the photo with me at three,
Line 15: the crinkled smile is still living,
breathing.
is in the photograph (still living in her heart)
Feels her grandmothers presence whenever
she
looks at the photograph
She wants to remember her as a healthy
person, not old and fragile

Setting
There is no mention of place and
time. The persona looks at an old
photograph
taken
with
her
grandmother when she was only
three years old. Going through an old
photo album could indicate an indoor
or living room setting. But there is no
expressed statement to validate that.

Theme
Love and fond memories of a person who has passed away. It
also declares how fond memories are perpetuated by an old
photograph
The positive image people create in remembrance of a
departed person
Coping with grief and loss one way is to hang on to the good
memories of a person

Moral Values
We must strive for close family
relationships.
We should love and appreciate our
family members while they are still
alive.
We must not dwell on the past too
much.
We should learn to let go of the dead.

References

http://literature.britishcouncil.org/jackie-kay