Comparitive Poetry

A detailed Summary of Comparitive Poetry

How do the authors of Long Distance, The Sick Equation and My Grandmother enable us to understand the relationships described in the poems?

In 'Long Distance', the rhyming pattern is abab cdcd efef, but in stanza four it changes. The rhyme pattern then changes to ghhg. The slowing down of the pace when you read the fourth stanza is very effective. The new tone and pace gives the poem a feeling of sadness. In the first three stanzas Harrison is talking about his father, then the first word in the fourth stanza is 'I' and Harrison is now talking about himself and how he feels.

The poem reflects the poet's life as a working class child and the relationship between the father and his dead mother. He talks about his father's feelings and at the end of the poem, his own.

His parents must have had a very strong and stable relationship as the father is still mourning the death of his wife two years on. They must have been very close. Harrison mentions in the poem, all the small things that the father continued to do for his wife: 'kept her slippers by the gas... put hot water bottles her side of the bed... and still went to renew her transport pass'. These must have been the things he did for her when she was still alive.

All three poems reflect upon past and present relationships with loved ones e.g. parents or grandparents. They examine feelings of loss, bereavement, grief, guilt, anger and pain. They look at how these relationships from the past impact upon them in the present. The poems also look at how some people hold onto the past and have difficulty moving on. I feel that all the poems are equally effective in portraying the structures of relationships.

H e dreams of 'flight' but he believes dreams are illusory, therefore an 'anguish'. This stanza has many abstract ideas e.g. 'drifted, dreams, flight, weighed, flightless'. Patten admits to being wrong in the last stanza (line 31) and realises that not everyone is damaged like himself 'It's absurd to believe all others are as damaged as ourselves. Pattern is now aware of the illogicality of his earlier lesson and realises that giving and receiving love in a relationship, 'can in time refute the lesson that our parents taught'. He doesn't, therefore, have to repeat the patterns of the past.

Before visitors turn up, he wants warning, so he can have time to clear away all her things 'He'd put you off an hour to give him time to clear away her things and look alone'. The father seems embarrassed that he is still holding onto his wife's belongings. He acts like ' love were such a crime.' In his own mind he is sure his wife will come back, 'he knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.' The father does not want to move on in life, or does not choose to believe life ends with death like his son does.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Equation Grandmother, Grandmother' Jennings, Sick Equation', anger pain, 'long distance', Marc O'Brien, , believe life death, address book, jennings grandmother, black leather, life death, believe life, relationship father, objects jennings, harrison talking,

Approximate Word count = 1645
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English