The more and more the reader and realises the main theme of the poem that Harrison has established, the more the poem starts to develop as a sort of a piece of writing expressing how bad his relationship with his father is “A night you need my company to pass”. At this moment the father needs his son because he is sad and even though the writer is quite sceptical towards his relationship with his father, Harrison needs his father because his grief is not less.
Harrison says that his father’s life is “all shattered into smithereens”, but here is hiding what his actual feelings are and in a way attacks his father.
The final lines of the poem suggest and show the reader that the difference between them is so quite major because of education “what’s still between’s not the thirty years or so years, but books, books, books.” Harrison wants to be close to his father but he must give up his education and social level so that he can keep a close relationship.
The second “Book Ends” poem continues to give the reader more and more information about the relationship between Harrison and his father. The poem starts of with Harrison deciding what to write on his mother’s stone “The stone’s too full…There’s scarcely room to carve”. Form here the reader finds out that there has been to much written on the gravestone and there isn’t even enough space to write her name. Harrison ahs a lot to write to his on his mother’s gravestone, but the father doesn’t seem to care too much “Come on it’s not as if we’re wanting verse. It’s not as if we are wanting a whole sonnet!”. Here the father is also mocking the son’s education, by saying that he doesn’t know to actually write.
The next line of the poem shows the reader that they are still depressed because of the mother’s death “After tumblers of neat Johnny Walker”. This also shows that they still can’t cope without the mother.
The father’s appalling education results as a barrier between them as Harrison is this time mocking his father “you said you’d always been a clumsy talker and couldn’t find another, shorter word for “beloved” or for “wife””. Although his father is not as intelligent as Harrison is he Is still able to be cutting his son when the writer is looking for words to put on his mother’s gravestone “not too clumsy that you can’t still cut”.
Again in the next two lines where the father is speaking, he is mocking his son’s education by saying that it only exists on paper “bright boy at description” and the swear words that the father uses “what the fuck to put” shows again his lack of vocabulary due to poor education and also his frustration with his son.
The father’s lower social class status is shown once more in the poem “I’ve got the envelope that he’d been scrawling”. The fact that his father has written the words that are supposed to go on to the mother’s gravestone on an envelope, shows in a way the respect he has for her and again his poor education is emphasised “mawkish, stylistically appalling”.
The next poem that I am going to discuss is called “A Good Read” and it is again about the relationship between Harrison and his father.
The poem starts of with Harrison describing what he has had to read that particular summer “That summer it was Ibsen, Marx and Gide”. This is quite symbolic because Ibsen wrote depressing poems about bad family relationships and Marx is the so called father of communism. The fact that the father is saying “ah sometimes you read too many books. ah nivver ‘ad much time for a good read” at the same time the father wonders how can his son find books so amusing and again this show the difference in their social class, but it also shows that the father was working all the time so that his son can have a good education and that’s why he didn’t read a lot. In the part of the poem which is written in italics is where Harrison expresses his frustration with his father and he also patronises him “Good read! I bet! Your programme at United”. Harrison mentions sarcastically that his father even reads the labels on his drinks and that shows that his father has started to drink a lot which leads to the fact that he can’t cope with the loss of Harrison’s mother. At the end of the part in italics Harrison shows a similarity with his father by swearing “fucking football”. This shows that even though there is a lot of tension In their relationship they are still a father and son. Also Harrison can’t actually say all those things to his father “(All this in my mind.)”
The father of Harrison actually becomes the “good read” as he becomes the subject of some of his poems which is quite ironic and writing becomes the only thing that makes his father interesting to Harrison.
The last poem that I will discuss is called “Bringing up” and it tells Harrison’s readers and audience about his relationship with his mother, but more precisely what his mother used to think of his writing and how did she accept it. As it can be gathered form the title it is the time when his mother was still alive and when Harrison was younger and at the beginning of his poetic years.
The poem starts of with his mother being “in disgust” with what Harrison has produced and the fact that she has borrowed “a library copy” shows even more that his mother didn’t approve of her son’s writing at all. Alliteration is used for emphasis on that how much she dislikes his poetry “wept for weeks”.