Follower

Question 1

What type of poem is it?

Answer 1

Familial

Question 2

What are the key themes?

Answer 2

1. Memory
2. Admiration
3. Growing up/old
4. Parent-child relationship

Question 3

Key quotes for memory?

Answer 3

“My father worked with a horse plough” & “rode me on his back” - fond memories, idyllic ideas of father in the past, strength, clearly described, want to be remembered

“I was a nuisance” - clearly remembers what he was like, memories aren’t being thrown away or forgotten - worth keeping and are like a treasure

Question 4

Key quotes for admiration?

Answer 4

“An expert.” - full stop shows its factual and no changing his mind, he’s convinced his father was an expert, “expert” shows great skill and expertise, full stop could also symbolise thinking as if having flashbacks of the things that showed fathers expertise

“Narrowed” “Angled” “Exactly” - semantic field of precision, shows the awe at which he looks at his dad

“Shoulders globed like a full sail strung” - simile, globe = world, his dad is like the world to him, ‘full sail strung’ suggest going through life with experience so father is experienced with life

Question 5

Key quotes for growing up/old?

Answer 5

“Tripping, falling / Yapping” - nuisance when he was young but father still put up with him

“But today” - vulta
“My father who keeps stumbling” - father is nuisance now rather than expert
“Will not go away” - irritated by him, contrast to father putting up with baby

Full cycle moment? - baby son is nuisance and then old dad is now nuisance - life is a circle where you gain and lose expertise after time

Question 6

Key quotes for parent-child relationship?

Answer 6

“I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake,”