Discuss the poet's experiences of childhood and family life - The three poems under discussions are, Long Distance by Tony Harrison, looking for dad and The Sick Equation by Brian Patten.

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Discuss the poet's experiences of childhood and family life

The three poems under discussions are, Long Distance by Tony Harrison, looking for dad and The Sick Equation by Brian Patten.  These poems can be classified as elegy types of poem because they relate to the poet's experiences of family life during their childhood, which mostly resort to death, divorce and depression.

In Long Distance, Tony Harrison, shows a loving and caring family where the death of his mother is not accepted by the rest of the family, and  thus avoid grieving, whereas Brian Patten, in both of his poems, show the trouble which existed with his parental relationship and how it impacted his life.

Long Distance is a short poem, with short sentences with common words, aimed at luring the readers attention.  Harrison choice of words are based on everyday life which is in a simple language to reflect on ordinary working class family.  Tony Harrison uses rhyming pattern (A,B,A,B) as form of structure for each stanza.  For the last stanza the rhyming pattern changes from A,B,A,B to A,B,B,A to show he is talking about himself.

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The story in Long Distance is about the death of the poet's mother and his father's pain in accepting his wife's death.  In spite that the death happened 2 years ago, his father still carries on normally as if she is still there;  "Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas, put hot water bottles her side of the bed and still went to renew her transport pass".

Two years have elapsed since the poet's mother died, and his father is still in a denial state however this is common, where one loses a person, where there is ...

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