Material By Ros Barber Flashcards
Title: ‘Material’
Something substantial and significant representing strong and durable relationship rather than artificial.
Symbolic of a connection between the speaker and her mother.
Agenda
Highlights how society is moving fast and Ros Barber urges people to process each moment in life and enjoy it.
Tackles social taboos in regard to motherhood and past generational expectations of what is normalized.
Showcases the societal drift away from traditional values. Past generations cared about and valued their community however, present generation lacks this sense of fellowship and friendliness.
Context
Captures the poet grappling with grief following her mothers death. Triggered nostalgia for her mother’s era reveals her yearning and inability to fully accept her mother’s loss, prompting her to the question her own motherhood. The speaker relives her past life with the memories of her mother and reminisces.
Deep personal resonance, as poet said, ‘the seed of this collection was the death of my mother in 2002.’ She admitted that writing poems for this collection was a healing process and provided a source of solace.
Themes
Aging
Nostalgia
Past memories
Tradition
Death and Life
Reminiscent
Structure
6 Stanzas with no strict rhyme scheme allowing the poem to have a natural and personal conversational tone.
Reflective tone.
Enjambement - reflects the ongoing flow of thought indicating how the poet’s memories are still vivid and flow out easily.
Stanza 1:
‘My mother was a hanky queen’
‘not paper tissues bought in packs’
‘waving out of trains and mopping the corners of your grief’
‘she’d have one, always, up her sleeve’
‘hanky’ - colloquial term giving the poem a familiar and humorous tone. Lighthearted atmosphere.
‘queen’ - Idolization immediately indicates the positive relationship the speaker and their mother has as she expresses her immediate admiration.
Symbolic of disposal and unsentimental nature of modern society. Hanky replaced with Tissues and forgotten.
Society following capitalistic outlook as paper tissues can be massed produced, last longer and cheaper.
Alludes to WW2 when people would wave off their loved ones as they go to war.
Sense of romanticism.
Hanky can be used to provide a sense of comfort in relieving sorrow or pain.
Constant mention of hanky’s symbolic of her constant presence in her child’s life
Represents how she is prepared to provide comfort.
Stanza 2:
‘cardi’
‘mum’s embarrassment of lace’
‘V for Viv’
‘dried up hankies fell in love and mated’
Colloquialism connotates homeliness
Represents the phase of a child’s life where they view their parent’s as embarrassing. The poet expresses regret.
Colloquialism - shortened name implying her mum mother was so easy to get a long with and had a friendly demeanor.
Personification creates a humorous tone. Hankies associated with love as her mother always bought them out of love for the speaker.
Stanza 3:
‘She brought her own; I never did.’
‘naffest Christmas’
‘My brothers too…got male ones: serious, and grey, and larger’
‘like they had more snot’
Separation between poet and mother. different priorities.
Anecdotal tone - nostalgia
Stereotypical and traditional gender roles
Humorous and comedic tone to create a comfortable environment as readers read the poem, replicating the comfortable environment the poet’s mother always provided for her.
Stanza 4:
‘it was hankie that closed department stores’
‘you’d never find today in malls’
‘Hankies, which demanded irons, and boiling’
‘those who used to buy them died.’
Personification - Importance and commonality of a hanky
Society no longer value hankies. They are an item of the past.
Hankies require a lot of care and effort however, society views them as a burden. People less focused on traditionality but rather practicality. Prefer convenience.
Death of a generation along with the memories.
Stanza 5:
‘with the hanky’s loss, greengrocer George with his dodgy foot….is history’
‘friendly butcher’
Reference to the importance of community and how everyone knew everyone. ‘hanky’s loss’ was a loss for a generation.
Stanza 6: Auditory + visual imagery of her childhood
‘step-together, step-together, step-together’
‘every mother, fencing tears, would whip a hanky from their sleeve’
‘smudge the rouge from little dears’
Repetition highlights sense of community with same values and togetherness.
Ironic as now the speaker is the one ‘fencing tears’ for her mother
mothers wept at the thought of their children growing older. Now their children weep for their parents no longer being alive.
