Catrin

Question 1

The initial period before birth is described

Answer 1

“I can remember you, child, / As I stood in a hot, white / Room at the window watching / The people and cars taking / Turn at the traffic lights.” ( 1-5)

Question 2

The initial struggle between the mother and her daughter, the process of giving birth, is described

Answer 2

“I can remember you, our first / Fierce confrontation, the tight / Red rope of love which we both / Fought over.” (6-9)

Question 3

The environment where the mother gave birth was bland and medical

Answer 3

“It was a square / Environmental blank, disinfected / Of paintings or toys.” (9-11)

Question 4

The process of giving birth is painful and difficult

Answer 4

“I wrote / All over the walls with my / Words, coloured the clean squares / With the wild, tender circles / Of our struggle to become / Separate” (11-16)

Question 5

Caesura are used to mimic the breathing difficulties when giving birth

Answer 5

“We want, we shouted, / To be two, to be ourselves.” (16-17)

Question 6

The struggle of childbirth was not won by anyone, implying the struggles more broadly do not result in victory for the mother or daughter

Answer 6

“Neither won nor lost the struggle / In the glass tank clouded with feelings / Which changed us both.” (18-20)

Question 7

The mother still loves their daughter despite conflict occurring, and the poem makes reference to how old the connection is between them

Answer 7

“Still I am fighting / You off, as you stand there / With your straight, strong, long / Brown hair and your rosy / Defiant glare, bringing up / From the heart’s pool that old rope” (20- 25)

Question 8

The poem’s end emphasises love and conflict in life as the major themes and describes the present events, hinting at the daughter growing up and possible danger

Answer 8

“Tightening about my life, / Trailing love and conflict, / As you ask may you skate / In the dark, for one more hour.” (26-29)