Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Ms Nitsche
Whats in a name?
In pairs discuss the following questions:
What do the names of the six poems we will study
suggest to you?
What do you think the poems will be about?
What themes might they explore?
Keeping Orchids
Divorce
Bed
Gap Year
Lucozade
My Grandmothers Houses
Family
One of the main themes that connects the six
poems is that of FAMILY.
The poems explore inter-generational
relationships, such as:
- Daughter & mother
- Daughter & birth mother
- Granddaughter & grandmother
- Mother & son
- Daughter & parents.
Poetic Voice
The voice is the point of view that a poem is
seen from, like a narrator or persona.
The poems feature the voice of a female
persona (although Lucozade is a little more
ambiguous).
This female persona explores family
relationships as a result, all offer a thoroughly
domestic discourse or series of ideas.
Keeping Orchids
Whats it about?
The speaker apparently Kay herself
reflects on meeting her birth mother for
the first time. Written in couplets and
touches on themes of secrets and
discoveries, as well as adoption and
family relationships.
Keeping Orchids
This poem describes the poets first meeting with her
birth mother. It is a painful emotional journey for both
women. The poet uses the images of the orchids her
birth mother gave her on their first meeting and of her
own and her mothers troubled hands as symbols of the
complex, painful emotions they both feel. It is not a joyful
meeting. Jackie Kay can articulate her own feelings but
finds it hard to read her mothers feelings as she tells
the story of her life. The poet describes her mothers
account of her life as compressed, airtight, a sad
square. It does not reveal enough; it does not bring
comfort to her daughter, hungry for emotional connection
and revelation.
Keeping Orchids
In pairs, discuss these questions:
What are your initial thoughts on the poem?
What language techniques does the writer use?
What is she trying to say by using these
techniques?
Keeping Orchids
Full of emotion but very controlled and
restrained.
Appears more about objects than emotions,
or, in other words, descriptive rather than
reflective.
Title parallels the adoption central image
of Keeping Orchids is important.
The most abstract of the poems; offers the
widest opportunities for interpretation.
Divorce
Whats it about?
Monologue written in the voice of an
adolescent.
Addressed to her parents, threatening
to divorce them.
Explores themes of generational
conflict.
Light-hearted in tone.
Divorce
This poem is written in the form of an address. The title leads us to
expect a poem about divorcing parents but it is soon clear that it is a
young person who wishes to divorce her parents. The dramatic,
often comical tone leads us to question how serious the girls
grievances are or wonder if her histrionics mask a deeper hurt. Her
vision of the parents she wishes for is lyrical and idealistic,
suggesting that in her disappointment with her real parents she is
seeking the impossible. There is a wistfulness and longing in the
lines who speak in the soft murmur of rivers and sing in the
colourful voices of rainbows which is in strong contrast to the
confrontational persona presented in the rest of the poem. The girl
uses blunt, assertive, uncompromising statements: I want a
divorce; I never chose you; I dont want to be your child; building
up to the final climax in the last line, but their force is blunted by the
humorous effect of the rhyming of the final couplet. The poem is
dramatic, humorous and unsettling.
Divorce
In pairs, discuss these questions:
What are your initial thoughts on the poem?
What language techniques does the writer use?
What is she trying to say by using these
techniques?
Divorce
Provide evidence from the poem for your
answers.
1. Who is the narrator? (2 marks)
2. What tone does the poem have? (2 marks)
3. Summarise the ways in which the speakers
parents are an irritation to her. (4 marks)
4. How is imagery used to create an idea of the
perfect parents in lines 16-24? (4 marks)
5. How does the language in lines 24-28 show the
speakers anger? (4 marks)
Divorce
Using your How to Answer the Questions
sheet as a guide, analyse this piece of
imagery from the poem:
There are parents in the worldwho
speak in the soft murmur of rivers
I want a divorce.
There are parents in the world whose faces turn
up to the light
who speak in the soft murmur of rivers
and never shout.
There are parents who stroke their childrens cheeks
in the dead of night
and sing in the colourful voices of rainbows,
red to blue.
These parents are not you. I never chose you.
You are rough and wild,
I dont want to be your child. All you do is shout
and thats not right.
I will file for divorce in the morning at first light.
Introduction
Start with TART
(Title, Author, Refer to Task)
You should also give a BRIEF outline of
what the poem is about.
Now, write your own introduction.
YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES
Example
Divorce by Jackie Kay is a poem which
explores the experience and fraught relationship
between a teenager and their parents. Kays use
of imagery, tone and narrative voice highlights
the anger the speaker feels towards their
parents, whilst emphasising their own dramatic
nature through traditional role reversal.
Point
The Point is simply what each paragraph is aboutyou make a main point in every paragraph you
write. This is usually the TOPIC SENTENCE you
use.
Do not signpost your paragraph e.g. do not say I
am going to talk about
What is a TOPIC
SENTENCE?
This is basically a sentence that introduces what the
paragraph is going to be about.
You should mention WHAT you are going to discuss in the
paragraph, and refer back to the question.
REMEMBER YOUR KEY WORDS AND ALTERNATIVE
LANGUAGE!
Topic Sentences
All TOPIC SENTENCES should make some reference to
the essay question.
A good way to do this is through the KEY WORDS we
extract from the essay question.
Evidence
The evidence is the quotation or description of the
scene, shot or technique you are using to back up
your point.
It is important that you pick evidence that you can
explain and evaluate FULLY.
Never just drop evidence in always introduce them
within the CONTEXT of the poem, i.e. what is
happening at this point in the poem, what characters
are involved and who they are, etc.
EXAMPLE
TOPIC SENTENCE: In Divorce Kay emphasises the
anger the speaker experiences towards their parents by
comparing their relationship to a marriage that has broken
down.
EVIDENCE: The poem opens with the speaker telling their
parents that:
I did not promise
to stay with you till death do us part, or
anything like that.
Evaluation (Analysis)
This is the chance for you to explain how the quotation
backs up the point you are making
You need to make sure that you fully explain the quotation
or shot/scene/technique.
You then need to evaluate it - give your opinion on how
successful it is.
Your opinion should be implicit - do not write I think.
EXAMPLE
TOPIC SENTENCE: In Divorce Kay emphasises the anger the speaker
experiences towards their parents by comparing their relationship to a
marriage that has broken down.
EVIDENCE: The poem opens with the speaker telling their parents that:
I did not promise
to stay with you till death do us part, or
anything like that.
EVALUATION: Immediately the speaker confounds our expectation that this
poem is based on marriage instead Kay shows that the speaker has not
made a commitment of that sort, and the line or anything like that
emphasises how dismissive they are of such a concept. In this opening line,
Kay shows the speakers lack of concern for whom she is addressing,
rejecting the idea of lifelong or till death do us part commitment. Here,
Kay successfully shows that the speaker is absolute in both her dismissal
of her parents, and in her self-belief that she does not need to stay with
them as she has made no promise or assurance that she will.
Putting P E E Together
Point/ Topic Sentence.
Evidence description of scene and
technique.
Evaluation/Analysis.
TASK
In PAIRS, write a paragraph based on this
quotation:
Mother, you never, ever said
a kind word
or a thank-you for all the tedious chores I have done
Be prepared to share your paragraph with the class!
Example
Bed
Whats it about?
A monologue told through the voice of
the elderly female persona who is bedridden. Written in Scots, the poem
explores themes of dependency and
aging.
Bed
In this poem Jackie Kay uses the dramatic monologue form to
convey the stark realities of extreme old age. The speaker is an
elderly bed-bound woman, completely dependent on her daughter
for her care. She voices her thoughts and feelings in a colloquial
Scots which is direct, expressive and sometimes bleakly humorous.
Her words describe with a raw honesty the physical ravages of old
age and the guilt and frustration she feels. She has become the
wean noo. In the second last stanza her words have a stark poetry
in the personification of Time held between / the soft bits o ma
thumbs. In the last stanza she contemplates her own death. Her
matter of fact question, how wull she feel? and her apparently
simple and direct statements suggest a complexity of emotions
about her own death and how it will affect her daughter.
Bed
In pairs, discuss these questions:
What are your initial thoughts on the poem?
What language techniques does the writer use?
What is she trying to say by using these
techniques?
Bed
Title directs reader to themes of restriction,
confinement and imprisonment
Provides a voice from the margins an invalided
and aged mother.
Written in a Scots dialect, often reflecting the
patterns and inflections of real speech.
Offers a perspective on the sad reality of her life,
being cared for at home by her daughter.
HOWEVER, almost Shakespearean in its assessment
of time as a great destroyer of youth and beauty.
Tone is ambiguous unclear whether she is grateful
to or resentful of her daughter.
Gap Year
Whats it about?
Written in the voice of the poet and dedicated
to her son, Matthew. Describes his travels
abroad and leads to reflections on her
feelings about his childhood and newfound
independence. Explores themes of
motherhood, closeness and distance, and
the passage of time.
Gap Year
This poem is written in the form of an address to her son, Mateo. It
expresses her love for and pride in her son, who is spending a gap
year travelling widely in South America. In the first section she
describes her memories of the weeks before he was born: her
excited anticipation, the difficult birth. In the second section she
describes the progress of his travels and her mixed feelings about
his departure. She is caught up in the romance and adventure of his
travels in exotic places but misses him greatly. In contrast, his
grandfathers blunt advice reminds her of the very real dangers he
might encounter. She cannot hide her strong feelings of
disappointment when she learns he will return home four weeks
later than she had expected, but comments with wry humour that
she feels like a home-alone mother. In the last two stanzas,
however, her mood changes to one of elation and pride when she
looks at photos of her son on top of the world. It seems no time
since he was a baby dreaming in his Moses basket.
Gap Year
In pairs, discuss these questions:
What are your initial thoughts on the poem?
What language techniques does the writer use?
What is she trying to say by using these
techniques?
Gap Year
Think about your relationship with your
own parents.
How has it changed from when you were a
small child until now?
Make a list of how your relationship and
how you see each other has altered over
time.
Gap Year
Written in two defined sections.
Offers many parallels and connections between
past and present Matthews childhood and
adulthood.
At one and the same time celebrates and
laments his independence.
Provides a contrast between the speaker at
home, and the son exploring and investigating.
Indeed, the second section allows the reader to
track his adventures as the speaker does.
I
I remember your Moses basket before you were born.
Id stare at the fleecy white sheet for days, weeks,
willing you to arrive, hardly able to believe
I would ever have a real baby to put in the basket.
Id feel the mound of my tight tub of a stomach,
and you moving there, foot against my heart,
elbow in my ribcage, turning, burping, awake, asleep.
One time I imagined I felt you laugh.
II
Now, I peek in your room and stare at your bed
hardly able to imagine you back in there sleeping,
Your handsome face soft, open. Now you are eighteen,
six foot two, away, away in Costa Rica, Peru, Bolivia.
I follow your trails on my Times Atlas:
from the Caribbean side of Costa Rica to the Pacific,
the baby turtles to the massive leatherbacks.
Then on to Lima, to Cuzco. Your grandfather
Lucozade
Whats it about?
Told from the perspective of a 16 year
old persona visiting his/her mother in
hospital. Charts a turn in the mothers,
and ultimately the speakers, attitudes
about death.
Lucozade
In this poem Jackie Kay describes visiting her mother in hospital.
She was a young girl of sixteen, afraid that her mother would die.
The poem not only describes the shock of seeing her mother but
conveys the personality of her mother expressively and with
humour. Her mothers ironic questions, her humorous commands,
her idiosyncratic remarks may be partially the result of her treatment
or operation but strongly suggest a person who faces her hospital
experience with spirit and humour. There is something indomitable
about her. The last two stanzas describe the euphoria of relief the
poet feels when she realises her mother will not die but has
recovered enough to wave from her hospital bed. The clearing of
her mothers ward cupboard of the traditional gifts an invalid
receives, which her mother had decisively rejected, is a cathartic
moment for the poet. For the sixteen-year-old poet, her senses
heightened after the trauma of her mothers hospitalisation, the sight
of her mother waving becomes for her a beautiful, almost heavenly
vision.
Lucozade
In pairs, discuss these questions:
What are your initial thoughts on the poem?
What language techniques does the writer use?
What is she trying to say by using these
techniques?
Lucozade
Offers the complex image of the Lucozade initially
present in the title.
Rejection of the typical markers of sickness, in
favour of luxury and the decadent markers of life.
Seems to be a formative experience for the speaker.
Recognises her youth but suggests she learns
something about life and death.
Speaker literally and metaphorically unburdens the
mother in what appears to be a final ritual clearing
the hospital cabinet.
My Grandmothers Houses
Whats it about?
Monologue told by a female persona
describing the time she spends with her
grandmother, both at her grandmothers
homes (initially a tenement and then a high
rise block of flats) and the house her
grandmother cleans for a living. Explores
ideas about the passage of time and
intergenerational/family relationships.
My Grandmothers Houses
In this poem, the poet simultaneously recreates her childhood
experiences and voices her adult perceptions of her grandmother.
Each section of the poem describes a different house, each flat
reflecting different aspects of her life, work and personality. This
structure enables Jackie Kay to create a vivid, memorable portrait
of her grandmother. The first section describes her tenement flat
with her bedrooms idiosyncratic clutter. In the second section the
poet creates a picture of her life in her new high-rise flat. We learn
that she is always busy, still cleaning peoples houses at the age of
seventy and taking her reluctant grandchild to church with her on
Sundays. The third section describes the childs perceptions of her
grandmothers cleaning house and uses snatches of remembered
conversations to portray the somewhat patronising posh one. The
final three lines suggest that her grandmother had moved to a
ground floor flat, where she is disturbed by screaming ambulances.
It is a sombre ending to a poem which pays tribute to the life of this
spirited, hard-working and devout woman.
My Grandmothers Houses
In pairs, discuss these questions:
What are your initial thoughts on the poem?
What language techniques does the writer use?
What is she trying to say by using these
techniques?
My Grandmothers Houses
Sense of the standards of the older generation
work ethic, religious sensibilities, asceticism.
1
She is on the second floor of a tenement.
From her front room window you see the cemetery.
Her bedroom is my favourite: newspapers
dating back to the War covering every present
shes ever got since the War. Whats the point
in buying her anything my mother moans.
Does she use it. Does she even look at it.
I spend hours unwrapping and wrapping endless
tablecloths, napkins, perfume, bath salts,
stories of things I cant understand, words
like conscientious objector. At night I climb
over all the newspaper parcels to get to bed,
harder than the schools obstacle course. High up
in her bed all the print merges together.
2
The new house is called a high rise.
I play in the lift all the way up to 24.
Once I get stuck for a whole hour.
From her window you see noisy kids
playing hopscotch or home.
She makes endless pots of vegetable soup,
a bit bit of hoch floating inside like a fish.
3
By the time I am seven we are almost the same height.
She still walks faster, rushing me down the High Street
till we get to her cleaning house. The hall is huge.
Rooms lead off like an octopuss arms.
I sit in a room with a grand piano, top open
a one-winged creature, whilst my gran polishes
for hours. Finally bored I start to pick some notes,
oh can you wash a sailors shirt oh can you wash and clean
till my gran comes running, duster in hand.
I told you dont touch anything. The woman comes too;
the posh one all smiles that make goosepimples
run up my arms. Would you like to sing me a song?