The way the two poets title their poems gives us some information on how their relationships were with their parents. Grace Nichols uses upbeat and joyful words to describe the poem as a song of praise. She in a way dedicates the poem to her mother .Nichols also uses the first person when talking about her mother as if she is her property, “…for my mother.”
Heaney's title is more formal so it appears that Heaney and his father were not that close to each other. He also refers to himself in the third person when saying “Boy driving his father…”
Both of the poems use formal titles for their parents but for different reasons.
Seamus Heaney uses a formal title to show the distance between himself and his father, but Grace Nichols uses the more formal title of mother out of respect for her.
The length of the poems are acutely different .Seamus Heaney poem is significantly longer than Grace Nichols poem .it appears that this is because he has a lot of negative points to express about his father . Grace Nichols’ poem is short but is full of information about her mother that she can recall. Her poem shows more passion and intensity that is expressed through the love that exudes from her .Although Heaney’s is both passionate and intense it is a way for him to vent his anger and disappointment in his father.
Nichols uses metaphors in every stanza apart from the last one. Metaphors are a figure of speech in which a word is applied to an object that it does not literally apply to in order to imply a resemblance The metaphor such as “You were water to me.” shows how she pictures her mother as loving and caring. The metaphors in the poem are also used as tools to help make the poem more interesting for the reader. Heaney on the other hand retells upsetting and painful memories from his childhood which gives us an insight as to what his life and father was like making it more personal which helps to keep the reader included as they feel that they now know the poet. Heaney also uses a metaphor saying that his relationship with his father has a lot of “potholes” in it that both he and his father know about.
Grace Nichols uses a lot of repetition in her poem to show her mothers continual presence in her life ,even though she is gone, she is always with her .Grace Nichols uses happy memories from her hometown to describe her mother as they are both close to her heart. For example she refers to her mother as “fried plantain smell” which triggers her memory and makes her think back to times when her mother was alive and when she lived in the Caribbean. It also reminds us of her cultural identity .Grace Nichols is able to show the importance of her mother in her life as she can remember exactly what her mother said to her, “Go to your wide futures…”
Instead of using positive memories Seamus Heaney focuses on times that he was somewhat ashamed of his father for his actions .To do this he uses enjambment .He recalls the time when his younger brother was killed “I was shocked at your tears.”
He says this because his father taught him that men did not cry and so by doing this he was being hypocritical. But by the end of the poem Heaney seems to be seeking desperately o find some common ground with his father, showing that he wants to have better relationship with his father and is attempting to create one .he finds a characteristic present in both himself and his father which is awkwardness between their fathers but in his fathers case his father is the lord. Seamus Heaney sees this at the end of the poem when his father walks awkwardly to the church, “Who grope s awkwardly to know his father.” Heaney shows pity for his father at this point.
The two poems are similar in small ways and different substantially, but this is what makes them so good. The theme of the poems is something that everyone can relate to and so makes them easy and interesting to read .the two poets involved have different relationships yet can still find similarities making them more riveting to compare and contrast.
