Catrin Notes.

GCSE English

Anthology Work: Catrin

Comparing ‘Catrin’ with two pre-1914 poems and another post-1914.

Clarke: Cold Knap Lake

In both poems, life is magically brought forth
... yet Cold Knap Lake describes a virtual rebirth when the drowned girl is revived, rather than an actual birth.
Both contain conflict, but in Cold Knap Lake it is between the rescued girl and her parents, rather than between Clarke and her mother.
Clarke portrays her mother as a heroine in Cold Knap Lake. We are not told Catrin's feelings for her mother when she forbids her to go skating, but she is unlikely to see her in such glowing terms!

Yeats: The Song of the Old Mother

Both poems deal with the conflict between generations
...but in Yeats's poem there is no love. (Do you think that the struggles that Catrin and Clarke have experienced together actually increased their love?)
Both are written from the mother's point of view.
Catrin has a looser structure, while The Song is tightly structured. What could this suggest?

Wordsworth: The Affliction of Margaret

Both poems are from the mother's point of view and show that motherhood can be painful.
Yet while Margaret laments because she does not know what has happened to her beloved Son; Clarke suffers because of the tension between her and Catrin.
Both compare the child they knew (Margaret's the Young One) with the grown child; both show their pride in their offspring. Margaret's son was among the prime in worth, Catrin has a rosy, Defiant glare.
There is a sense of mystery in Wordsworth's poem, as no one knows the fate of the son; we pity Margaret. We sense the warmth in Clarke's relationship with Catrin, however.

It begins and ends in . But it is a conflict inseparable from love; it's an old rope 'Tightening about my life, / Trailing love and conflict'. There is perhaps some frustration in the poem's tone - but not bitterness. The tenderness is seen as all the more intense because of the conflict.

Ideas

The most important idea in this poem is that of the bonds or ties between parent and child, which are seen as in constant two-way , binding together and at the same time pulling apart. The bond is imagined now as a rope, now as a struggle.

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Ideas

the tight / Red rope of love which we both / Fought over. The main here is of a tug-of-war between mother and baby, which is at the same time a tug-of-love (in a tug-of-war you fight to pull your antagonist toward you). But the Red rope of love is also the umbilical cord, which binds mother and baby together but must be cut at birth - and is therefore an image both of dependancy, and of separation. Neither won nor lost the struggle / In the glass tank clouded with feelings .. This recalls the tug-of-war image: now one side pulling and the other giving way, now the other way about. There may be real fights, and feelings may run very high on either side - but at the end of the day the struggle between parent and child is not about winning or losing, but about change and growth on both sides. .. bringing up / From the heart's pool that old rope, / Tightening about my life This is a very rich image. The main image is of a boat in a harbour, tied to the quay by an old rope which is partly submerged - but which is pulled up out of the water as the boat is tugged at by the tide. It comes up dripping from the water - suggesting the way that every struggle between mother and daughter comes trailing deep-felt feelings 'From the heart's pool'. The rope tightens about the mother's life, constricting it - but also holding it safe, like the boat securely tied to the quay side bollard.

Clarke uses and to link and emphasise ideas. Look at:'..our first / Fierce confrontation' (line 6), where the repeated f sounds suggest the heavy-breathing effort of the birth. Or'..your straight, strong, long, brown hair and your rosy, / Defiant glare' where the st sound and rhyming -ong and -air sounds emphasise Catrin's strident strength. Clarke also uses to great effect. Look at:'.. cars taking / Turn at the traffic lights.' (lines 5/6), where the run-on 'enacts' the cars turning. Or'..our struggle to become / Separate.' (lines 15/16) where the line-end is used to physically separate the words. Standing alone at the beginning of a line, and followed by a full stop, the word prepares us for the birth, when mother and child become at last separate and ourselves (line 17). The gentle of the poem expresses the love the mother feels for the child. The rhythm is not regular, as if it were a natural, spontaneous train of thought

The poem begins in the labour ward of the hospital: it is 'hot, white' (line 2) and sterile, which seems at odds with the intimate event that is about to occur. Further on it is seen as 'a square / Environmental blank' (line 9) and a 'glass tank' (line 19). Why do you think Clarke places so much emphasis on the hospital building?

Before the actual birth, Clarke looks out of the window at 'The people and cars' (line 4) going about their every day business; she, in contrast, is about to experience one of the most momentous events of her life.

'The tight / Red rope of love' (line 8) is the umbilical cord. It is red because of the blood that flowed between the mother and the child in the womb; but also because red is the colour of passion and love. Red contrasts with the stark, white hospital surroundings

Mother and child 'fought over' (line 9) the cord. The fought suggests the brutality and pain of childbirth. Perhaps Clarke is marvelling at how love is created through violence.

'I wrote / All over the walls with my / Words' (line 11). Are these words Clarke's shouts and screams of pain, or are they words of a poem she thinks of through her labour? She imagines the words colouring 'the clean squares' (line 13) of the hospital. Decide whether you think the coloured words would deface the hospital's clean walls, or give them new life and vibrancy

'The wild tender circles' perhaps refer to the waves of contractions in the lead-up to the birth. Contractions get closer and closer together as moment of birth nears, as the circles of ripples on a pond are closest to the point where a stone is dropped in. The mother and child shouted

Both Clarke and Catrin were changed (line 20) by the birth: Clarke became a mother, someone upon whom a tiny baby depended; Catrin became a child, still dependent upon her mother - but less so than she had been in the womb. However, in some ways nothing changed, because the fight continues: Still I am fighting / You off (line 20).

Catrin has asked to 'skate / In the dark' (line 29). This illustrates Catrin's growing independence, yet perhaps contains other layers of meaning. One student quoted on Gillian Clarke's website points out that In the dark may mean that there are still things that the mother and child have yet to find out about each other; another interpretation suggests it refers to the darkness of the womb.

Structure

The poem consists of short lines divided into two stanzas. One deals with Catrin's birth, one the skating incident. The pause between them perhaps makes us wonder what took place in the intervening years.

Language

Think about how the language the poet uses helps to convey her ideas. Here are some points to consider:

The title simply tells us the name of the child we meet in line 1. Her name is not mentioned again, perhaps to reflect the universality of the poem: it could be about any mother / child relationship. Yet also, since the poem is addressed to the child, you, it may be that the relationship is so close that names are unnecessary.
The first stanza is in the past , as Clarke remembers the birth of her daughter. The second stanza, however, is in the present tense. This suggests that a struggle is still going on between them - and that their love is still as intense as ever.
She uses very simple language. Perhaps this indicates the simple, intense feelings that the poem conveys.
Gillian Clarke writes that she chose skating in the dark to be the focus of the dispute because it is something that children are likely to want to do and parents are likely to refuse. It is an activity that shows that "it is beautiful and dangerous to be young." Perhaps the mother recognises that and would like to let her daughter out to enjoy the experience, while worrying about what might happen if she does...

The poem is about the loving but sometimes tense relationship between a mother and daughter. It deals with two separate confrontations between them - the actual birth, then one night about twelve or fourteen years later, when Catrin wants to go out roller skating after dark and her mother refuses.

Clarke is writing about her own relationship with her daughter, Catrin. She says that she wrote the poem to answer the question, "Why did my beautiful baby have to become a teenager?" She seems torn between celebrating the fact that her child is growing up, and resisting her desire for independence. Although it is a very personal poem, it could be about any relationship between a mother and child.

Cold Knap Lake.