To my nine-year-old self - Helen Dunmore

Question 1

Title

Answer 1

written like a diary entry - this foreshadows that the poem will contain private thoughts and experiences

Question 2

‘you must forgive me’

Answer 2

• imperative - ‘must’
• forceful opening
• introduces the idea of dialogue

Question 3

‘balancing on your hands or on the tightrope. You would rather run than walk, rather climb than run rather leap from a height than anything.’

Answer 3

active verbs - energetic nature of youth

Question 4

‘I have spoiled this body we once shared.’

Answer 4

• comparative to active verbs
• semantic field of injury

Question 5

‘Do you remember how, three minutes after waking we’d jump straight out of the ground floor window into the summer morning?’

Answer 5

• rhetorical question
• reminiscent of nostalgia ‘do you remember’
• spontaneous action, lack of care for a consequence

Question 6

‘That dream we had, no doubt it’s as fresh in your mind as the white paper to write it on.’

Answer 6

• dramatic irony - being a successful poet
• ‘dream’ - anticipation and excitement
• ‘white paper’ - connotations of a blank slate, innocence and purity in youth

Question 7

‘a baby vole, or a bag of sherbet lemons – and besides, that summer of ambition created an ice-lolly factory, a wasp trap’

Answer 7

• semantic field of childhood
• fascination with the world
• ‘a wasp trap’ - blindness to danger

Question 8

‘I’d like to say that we could be friends but the truth is we have nothing in common’

Answer 8

• disconnect between the speaker and who she was

Question 9

‘I won’t keep you then.’

Answer 9

doesn’t want to burden younger self

Question 10

‘from men in cars after girl-children,’

Answer 10

younger self is blind to the dangers, that the speaker fears

Question 11

‘or to lunge out over the water on a rope that swings from that tree’

Answer 11

symbolistic of freedom - letting go of something

Question 12

‘I shan’t cloud your morning.’

Answer 12

• contrasts to previous summer imagery
• the homophone between ‘morning’ and ‘mourning’ can be viewing nostalgia of childhood

Question 13

‘I have fears enough for us both -‘

Answer 13

age brings about responsibilty, fear and anxieties that cloud dreams and memories

Question 14

‘I leave you in an ecstasy of concentration slowly peeling a ripe scab from your knee to taste it on your tongue.’

Answer 14

• wonderment and exploration of youth and sensory focus in the line
• image is familiar and relatable

Question 15

Overall messages

Answer 15

• in youth, we are free of complication, worry and boredom
• as we age we are concerned with image, and purpose and lose touch with the simplicity of the excitement of youth
• poem built around childhood experiences and the nostalgia that the narrator feels for their childhood

Question 16

Structure

Answer 16

• no rhyme scheme - could relate to disconnect between characters
• declines into short stanzas (real sense of finality)
• strong structure, suggests how adult life is regimented and scheduled as opposed to the life of a child who is free to do whatever they want