Analyse selected poems by Carol Ann Duffy which explore the past, commenting on ways in which this theme is conveyed.

Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow in 1955; a majority of her poems are autobiographical and are very much linked to her childhood.  I have very fond memories of my childhood and so I have chosen to look more closely at, “Before you were mine”, which I feel has very clear meaning of the feeling and her affection she showed for her mother.  Duffy goes ob and imagines her mother’s life before she was bought into the world and expresses how she would have loved to be one of her friends.  I will also analyse “Mrs Tilcher’s class” which shows many fond memories of childhood, particularly Duffy’s last year in junior school.  This would have been around the time of the mid 1960’s.

Before you were mine is written in the first person “I.”  As if Duffy is chatting to her mother.  Many of the phrases begin with “I” as if Duffy wanted to make her existence known long before she was actually born.  In this poem Duffy is reminicising lovely thoughts about her mother.  Fantasying about the life she used to lead and the fun that she had ten years preceding Duffy’s birth.  She goes on to write about her mother going out with friends to a dance hall, most likely in the late 1940’s early 1950’s.  Enjoying her teenage years, the clothes she wore and the possibility of meeting a future husband. Which was all very exciting? From the moment Duffy was born she writes how her mother’s life has changed forever, referring to her own “possessive yell,” as though her mother now belongs to her.  She assumes her mother’s life was more fun before she was born.  All the fun and freedom of her previous life is now just a distant memory.  The poem is dedicated to her mother it is very personal and intimate, like friends talking to one another. A way a mother and daughter should be.

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The first and second stanzas are written ten years prior to Duffy’s birth, whereas the third and fourth stanzas are relating to her early childhood memories.  The whole poem goes from the past through to the present. In the first stanza the poem begins “I’m ten years away from the corner you laugh on.” Her mother is full of life, fun loving and alive.  Carefree as her dress blows in the wind, conjuring up to me images of the famous pictures of Marilyn Monroe, who was a beautiful well known actress in those days.  

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