Mother, Any Distance Flashcards
Summarise the poem.
Perspective of a child leaving home for the first time savouring his freedom.
On a metaphorical level it covers the changing nature of a parent child relationship, and discovering their own identities.
What is the form of the poem and why is it like this?
A loose sonnet.
Unstable use of sonnet form shows nature of relationships at this crucial point is unstable and changes as he moves ot become his own person.
Describe the rhyme scheme.
Lack of fixed rhyme scheme shows they have an uncontrolled unpredictable relationship.
Give two structural points of the poem and describe the effects.
Octave in the first 8 lines presents a problem that the mother is holding back.
15th line is placed deliberately there to make the reader think and question the importance of it.
Give the quote with the word anchor.
“Anchor. Kite.”
Analysis of quote with the noun kite in it.
Structurally juxtposed.
Anchor grounds a ship yet a kite connotes freedom but is still held down by a human, they both bring stability but keep you in a fixed position.
Enjambment and free flowing structure = initially refelects freedom contrasted with caesura and reveals the mother embodys the anchor and holds him back.
Metaphor of anchor = ambiguous which echoes the mothers intentions as dubious.
Give the quote with the phrase “spool of tape”
“you at the zero end me with a spool of tape”
What does the quote about tape mean?
symboises the umbilicus cord.
constant supply of nutrients for growth and life.
Zero end reveals moment in the womb and this reminds the reader how the son and mother are connected from conception and womb is zero end for life.
Give the quote which includes this phrase “i space”
“I space walk through the empty bedrooms.”
What does the quote with “space walk” mean?
Space imagery represents the unknown future.
House description symbolises the universe aren’t measuring house but the evil of the world.
Mother grounds hum to reality instead of floating to certain doom.
Give the quote with the phrase “I reach”
“I reach towards a hatch that opens on the endless sky to fall or to fly?’
What does the quote with the phrase “to fall” mean?
Hatch is the lexical field of birds which instigates when the chick has to leave.
Risk speaker acknowledges seriousness as shown in the blunt final line.
The ‘ch’ and ‘f’ sounds are voiceless sibilant affricatives, which require us to make a noise with our breaths, it has an airy tone so we are forced to consider the purpose, as it captures the lightness as he is carried away from his mothers prescence to the unknown.
