The structure in Before You Were Mine looks from the past and the present but doesn’t make it clear which is which. It leads to a conclusion that the mother had to sacrifice her good old days to the responsibility of motherhood. In the first two stanzas she is writing before she is even born. The poem is written in regular stanzas with no rhyme scheme. The structure in Armitage`s poem employs a colloquial register when speaking to his mother. This means he is talking in a very easy or formal way to his mother. It is written in a quasi sonnet form and quatrains (4 lines) with rhymes. There is also a free verse of a single sentence with a concluding rhyming couplet.
Each poet uses different vocabulary, imagery and metaphor to define his or her relationship with that parent. Armitage says
“Mother any distance greater than a single span requires a second pair of hands”. This means he wants to create a distance between him and his mother. He says mother which is a formal way of talking to her.
The acres of the walls, the prairies of the floor. This is indicating that the house is empty and there is nothing on the floor or walls.
Recording length, reporting metres. Centimetres back to base, then leaving up the stairs, the line still feeding out unreeling years between us. The ing is indicating that the actions are occurring now.
Zero-end means his mother is at the end and he is moving further away from her. The anchor kite could mean his mother is the anchor and he is the kite. The anchor would be limiting the freedom of the kite. Spacewalk could mean he is walking through empty space in the bedrooms. Breaking point could mean complete freedom. Still pinch means the mother wants him to react but holds on by his fingertips. This is emotional. An endless sky to fall or fly means you could either go up or you could either go down.
Duffy starts off by writing the first two stanzas before she was born. She uses names like Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff which are Irish catholic names. She also uses the word Marilyn which is short for Marilyn Monroe. This is because she is famous because of her dress flying up and this is what she is indicating to her mother. I'm ten years away" is confusing (does "away" mean before this or yet to come?) but the second stanza's "I'm not here yet" shows us that the scene at the start of the poem comes before the birth of the poet. Duffy imagines a scene she can only know from her mother's or other people's accounts of it. Marilyn, Carol Ann Duffy's mother, stands laughing with her friends on a Glasgow street corner. Thinking of the wind on the street and her mother's name suggests to Duffy the image of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blown up by an air vent. She recalls her mother as young and similarly glamorous, the "polka-dot dress" locating this scene in the past.
Thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows means everyone is looking at her through the glitter ball. The right walk home means that if she is lucky she will find her future husband. The possessive yells marked the end of her mother’s happy times. The shoes are now relics because they are longer used for going out. The ghost may suggest that her mother is dead but it may be younger Marilyn is only seen in the imagination, as she "Clatters over George Square". The small bites on your neck sweetheart have sexual connotations. It is saying who gave you those love bites. On the way home from mass indicates she has come back from church. Cha cha cha!! which is a dance has been placed in the past that glamorous love lasts where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine. This would mean that she’s sees her mother as glamorous which is unusual for a daughter to see her mother. I wanted the bold girl winking
The language and imagery is very vivid and when the reader is able to read the poem he can draw an imaginary picture in his head to see what the poet is going through. The poet has a weird relationship with her mother because it is in a sexual sort of way. This is very unusual for a daughter to see her mother. The mother is like any other girl in that time. She goes out with her friend to dances and the cinema to have a good time but when she has had a baby all this has had to stop. The girl had come from a strict background and was a catholic.
The two poets have different views about their parents. Duffy is very close to her mother and wants to get closer to her in an unusual sort of way. Armitage is doing the opposite and is trying to get a distance between his mother. His mother is trying to hold onto her son but his nearly through her fingertips. Armitage is the opposite and writes about trying to keep a distance between himself and his mother. His mother is trying to hold on by his fingertips.
Overall each poet has described his or her parent very well including a lot of metaphors and imagery to help the reader understand what is going on.
In general it shows that children may need more space if they need it. This is in Armitages case. In Duffy’s case it is children need attention and need looking after.
