Here’s a full analysis of the poem ‘Shirt’ by Robert Pinsky, tailored towards A-Level students but also suitable for those studying at a higher level.
Includes:
VOCABULARY
STORY / SUMMARY
SPEAKER / VOICE
LANGUAGE FEATURES
STRUCTURE / FORM
CONTEXT
ATTITUDES
THEMES
“The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,
The nearly invisible stitches along the collar”
(Full poem unable to be reproduced due to copyright restrictions)
VOCABULARY
Yoke - a shaped pattern piece that makes up clothing
Yardage - a measure of length (yards)
Seams - the edges of material that are sewn together
Sweatshop - factories that have crowded conditions which pay workers very little
and exploit them
Armpiece - the section of a shirt which makes the arm
Overseam - a seam with a rough, raw edge on the outside
Cuff - the wrist edge of a shirt’s arm
Presser, cutter, wringer, mangle - machines used to make clothes - pressing,
cutting, wringing out and drying fabric
Treadle - a lever that is pressed by the foot in order to operate machines
Bobbin - a cylinder that holds thread
Hydrant - a place in a street where water can be accessed, such as for helping to put
out fires
Masonry wall - a wall made of stone
Hart Crane’s Bedlamite - Hart Crane is a poet and his poem ‘To Brooklyn Bridge’ (in
New York) includes an image of a ‘bedlamite’, a lunatic or madman, standing on the
edge of the bridge, his shirt billowing as he contemplates suicide.
Placket - an opening or cut in a piece of clothing
Bar-tacked - a type of stitch used to reinforce areas of clothes that might be put
under higher pressure
Plaid - chequered or tartan material
Checks - chequered pattern
Tattersall - a wool fabric that has a pattern on it that looks like tartan, but isn’t true
tartan
Madras - another imitation tartan pattern
, The hoax of Ossian - Ossian is the narrator of a set of Scottish epic poems published
in 1760 by James MacPherson - he claimed that the poems came from word of
mouth stories that were in Gaelic and passed down from ancient times - some
believed this was a ‘hoax’, a lie made up to make the poems seem more exciting.
Fabricated - a pun on the word ‘fabric’, meaning something that is made up rather
than real
Heraldry - the name for a coat of arms, the traditional family emblems of ancient
families
Kilt - a Scottish woolen skirt worn by men, traditionally they would wear the tartan
pattern of their family clan to show which family they belonged to
Looms - machines that weave fabric
Carders - machines or people that prepare wool by stretching it out into fine layers
Spinners - machines or people that turn wool into threads
Loader, docker, navy - people that transport goods - loading them onto ships,
working with ships in the harbour, sailing the goods to a different location
Planter, picker, sorter - jobs done by slaves - planting crops, picking crops, sorting
crops
Calico headrags - plain cotton material worn on heads to help shield from sun
George Herbert - a Welsh poet and priest
STORY/SUMMARY
We’re presented with the details of a shirt - its back, its patterned cutout pieces, the
length. It has overlapping seams that are hidden skillfully in the collar; this was done in
a sweatshop by Korean or Malaysian workers who gossiped while they drank tea and
ate noodles during their break, they talked about money and politics while one of them
fitted the pieces of the shirt together - fixing the arm to the cuff that the speaker
buttons up on his wrist. The speaker considers just how many processes the material
of the shirt went under before he bought it - it was pressed, cut, wrung, sewn, pieces
were brought together. He thinks of the infamous fire in Triangle Factory in 1911
where 146 people died, there were no escape routes or fire hydrants to help put out
the blaze. The witness across the street watched a man help girls to the window, to
jump from the ninth floor - as if he was helping them into a streetcar, not to jump to
their deaths. The third one turned round and kissed him before he held her up and
dropped her. He stepped up to the window himself, his jacket, shirt and trousers
fluttering - looking like Hart Crane’s Bedlamite on the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s great how
the pattern on his clothes fit so perfectly, even in the parts where the seams and
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