Compare the Poems ‘Babysitting’ and ‘Catrin’ with Particular Emphasis on How the Poet has Dealt with Adult-Child Relationships
‘Catrin’ and ‘Baby-sitting’ are both written by the poet Gillian Clarke. ‘Catrin’ is a poem with a much softer tone, represented in the long sentences and the calm atmosphere it creates when reflecting back in the past. In contrast ‘Baby-sitting is a poem with a much more emotional feel to it, containing more than one topic: for example in ‘Catrin’ it was looking at her daughter in the past as a infant and then in the present as an older less needy child, however in ‘Babysitting it is not only looking at her anxiety of the baby-sitting caring for a unknown baby but also from the perspective of the baby being left with no familiar figures surrounding it.
‘Catrin’ is a poem concerning the contrast between a baby’s (daughter ‘Catrin’) dependency on her mother (poet, Gillian Clarke) with the independence and defiance felt by an older child.
On the other hand ‘Baby-sitting’, instead of talking about the natural and instinctive love from a mother to her own child it discusses the anxiety she feels for another’s child, whom she does not know, strangers.
These poems both convey a wide variety of images to emphasise Clarke’s feelings. The most powerful phase I found was the one in ‘Baby-sitting’ in which she describes the dead body lying in the hospital as ‘the bleached bone in the terminal ward’ to describe how, even this, cannot compare to the abandonment and loneliness felt by the baby in contrast to the feelings of an older women suffering from the loss of a loved one, as she (the baby) has not yet learned how to cope with such feelings. This image is less personal than the ones found in ‘Catrin’, but I feel that the images put across to us in ‘Catrin’, although still captivating, such as the one describing her need to write graffiti on the walls - an outlet for all the turmoil and emotion she felt while giving birth, or the ‘tight, red rope of love’ used to describes the bond between mother and child relating to an umbilical cord, ‘Baby-sitting’ gives a more developed and cultivated perception. The fact that alliteration is used in this particular phrase makes it ‘roll of the tongue’ easier as well. The first time I read this I found it difficult to understand what it was explaining ‘the bleached bone in the terminal ward’ as it was not at first evident, however this phrase impresses clearly on the reader just how much anxiety the baby is filled with, even through it is rather cadaverous, haunted feeling displayed. It helps you to visualise the experience and share in the emotion felt.
