Objectives

1
Objectives

• By the end of todays lesson you will be able to
• Complete a MITS analysis of Mother by Simon
  Armitage.

2
What could the title be and why?
3

• These words come from a poem about a mother and a
  son. What do you think the poet might be saying
  about mother/son relationships from the words
  he has chosen to use?

4
Mother, any distance greater than a single
span requires a second pair of hands. You come to
help me measure windows, pelmets, doors, the
acres of the walls, the prairies of the
floors. You at the zero-end, me with the spool
of tape, recording length, reporting metres,
centimetres back to base, then leaving up the
stairs, the line still feeding out,
unreeling years between us. Anchor. Kite. I
space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb the
ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where
something has to give two floors below your
fingertips still pinch the last one-hundredth of
an inch I reach towards a hatch that opens on an
endless sky to fall or fly.
5
Questions

• Why do you think the poet has used a mixture of
  metric and imperial measures?
• Summarise what you think the relationship is like
  between the mother and the son.
• How does the son feel, do you think, when he
  reaches the end of the tape and looks through the
  hatch of the loft?
• Write down what the mother is thinking as she
  holds the zero end of the tape.
• Make a list of what the tape might represent
  literally and metaphorically in the poem?
• How do relationships with parents change as
  children grow up? Make a list of key years when
  the relationship changes eg learning to
  walkgoing to school, going on holiday with
  friends family, etc etc.

6
Direct address to mother
Annotate the poem using my notes and any of your
own
Mother, any distance greater than a single
span requires a second pair of hands. You come to
help me measure windows, pelmets, doors, the
acres of the walls, the prairies of the
floors. You at the zero-end, me with the spool
of tape, recording length, reporting metres,
centimetres back to base, then leaving up the
stairs, the line still feeding out,
unreeling years between us. Anchor. Kite. I
space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb the
ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where
something has to give two floors below your
fingertips still pinch the last one-hundredth of
an inch I reach towards a hatch that opens on an
endless sky to fall or fly.
7
TSLAP

• Themes/Meaning
• what is the poem about?
• who is the speaker? - are they dramatized (a
  character)
• who is being spoken to or addressed?
• what is being spoken about?
• Theme(s) of the poem - what is it really about?
• Setting/culture - wheres the poem set? Culture
  it is from/about?
• where does the poem get to from start to end?

Always link everything to meaning. Ask yourself
how does this contributes to the meaning? Why has
the poet used this technique?

• Attitude/Tone
• How would the poem be spoken? (angry, sad,
  nostalgic, bitter, humorous etc)

• Structure
• Rhyme - is there a rhyme scheme? Couplets?
  Internal rhyme?
• Rhythm - how many syllables per line? Is it
  regular or free verse? Why are some different
  lengths?
• Stanzas - How many? How do they change? Is there
  a narrative?
• Lines - how many are their in each verse? Do
  some stand out?
• Enjambment - do the lines run on to the next
  line or stanza?
• End stopping - does each line finish at the end
  of a sentence?
• Form - does the poem have a shape to it?

• Language
• What kinds of words are used?
• Puns - a pun is a play on words - Shear Class!
  if Shearer scores.
• Connotation - associations that words have (as
  "stallion" connotes a certain kind of horse with
  certain sorts of uses)?
• Double meanings - butts in - putting bottoms
  in or interrupting.
• Ambiguity - is the word or phrase deliberately
  unclear? Could it mean opposite things or many
  different things?.
• Word order - are the words in an unusual order
  why?
• Adjectives - what are the key describing words?
• Key words and phrases - do any of the words or
  phrases stand out? Do they shock? Are the words
  violent or sad etc?
• Slang or unusual words and misspellings - Does
  the poet use slang or informal language? Are
  American words used?
• Intertextuality - does the poem reference
  another text?
• Style - does the poet copy another style?
  (Newspaper, play etc)
• Characters - if there are characters how do they
  speak?

• Imagery
• Alliteration - the repeating of initial sounds.
• Assonance - is the term used for the repetition
  of vowel sounds within consecutive words as in,
  'rags of green weed hung down...'.
• Metaphor - comparing two things by saying one is
  the other.
• Simile - comparing two things saying one is like
  or as the other.
• Personification - giving something non-human
  human qualities.
• Onomatopoeia - words that sound like the thing
  they describe.
• Repetition - does the poet repeat words or
  phrases?

8
What have we learned about the poem?
What extra annotations can I add?
9
Mother, any distance greater than a single
span requires a second pair of hands. You come to
help me measure windows, pelmets, doors, the
acres of the walls, the prairies of the
floors. You at the zero-end, me with the spool
of tape, recording length, reporting metres,
centimetres back to base, then leaving up the
stairs, the line still feeding out,
unreeling years between us. Anchor. Kite. I
space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb the
ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where
something has to give two floors below your
fingertips still pinch the last one-hundredth of
an inch I reach towards a hatch that opens on an
endless sky to fall or fly.