Mother, Any Distance

Question 1

Author:

Answer 1

Armitage

Question 2

‘Anchor. Kite’

• INDEPENDENCE
• FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
• DISTANCE
• GETTING OLDER

Answer 2

Whatever happens in future, mother will be his ‘anchor’ from which he - the ‘kite’ - will soar away, but always be connected.
Also connotations of being held back and trying to break free; revealing the tension in their relationship.

Question 3

‘I space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb the ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where something has to give’

• DISTANCE
• GETTING OLDER
• INDEPENDENCE

Answer 3

‘Space walk’ - most distant sort of walk he can do, beyond even mountaineering.
The ‘empty bedrooms’ suggest the future when he will fill them with furniture and maybe the girlfriends who will provide him with kids.
It is here that he recognises that ‘something has to give’, the ‘breaking point’ of separation from his mother.

Question 4

‘I reach towards a hatch that opens on an endless sky to fall or fly’

• NATURE
• DISTANCE
• INDEPENDENCE

Answer 4

Bid for freedom - ‘endless sky’ being his future. That he will ‘fall or fly’ is inevitable. It is what young people, including the poet, must do.
The rhyming ‘sky’ and ‘fly’ provide the resolution and emphasis.

Question 5

Compare with:

Answer 5

Walking Away - changing parent/child relationship over time

Before You Were Mine - presentation of mother