Summary
Summary Poem Analysis: Material
- Module
- Unit 3 - Poetry
- Institution
- PEARSON (PEARSON)
5 pages of notes analysing the poem ‘Material’ by Ros Barber. From ‘Poems of the Decade’ for A-Level Edexcel English Literature.
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Material (Ros Barber)Quick summary:
Form – 9 stanzas with 8 lines (octets), except one with 9 → constancy of the past and
control of its memory (also look like square hankies!). Enjambment = flow of memories.
When memories spill out onto an extra line, she forces herself back to reality.
Lang (see below)
Imagery – the hanky is used as a synecdoche for the past (stimulates flux of memories and
emotions), and is the focus image of the poem. Contrast of past care, effort and
emotional engagement with present disposability and convenience.
Rhyme/rhythm – iambic tetrameter (regular rhythm, constancy of the past). First 6
stanzas are fast-paced, long sentences, lots of enjamb (cascade of memories), but last 3
pace is slowed (stilted, pained tone when she is trying to shut away the past, guilt).
Tone – flow of past memories is nostalgic outpour, longing for childhood and the past.
Bittersweet – childish humour jxp with adult emotional struggle. Turns to guilt and regret
at being unable to live up to her mother, written in response to grief for her. Last line
perhaps regains sense of purpose, poignant, cycle of motherhood.
Title (and later “when hankies were material”)
• Raw material, something that needs to be nurtured – could refer to a child which
parenting and childhood causes to develop and take on an identity
• Core, essential, valued
• Refers to handkerchiefs being an object of pride and care (and a synecdoche for
her childhood era), elevated by the fact they are lasting and ‘material’ with close
connections to emotion rather than being disposable and worthless. ‘When’
signifies a shift in lifestyle from modern times and her fondness for this era.
• Ros Barber had an argument with her father where he said “we are not your
material” (as in writing material for poetry), and she named her next collection
‘material’ as a result – reference to her family.
Form
In iambic tetrameter, has a regular rhythm. 9 stanzas which have 8 lines (octets) each
except one with 9 – constancy of the past, control of its memory. When she becomes too
deeply immersed in the past and memories spill out onto an extra line, she forces herself
back to reality (“nostalgia only makes me old.”) and box her memories away, and returns
to her present feelings of guilt and grief that she can’t live up to her mother’s example
and replicate her childhood for her own children.
In first 6 stanzas, pace is fast, few full stops (mostly commas, long sentences), lots of
enjambment (particularly in stanza 5, which flows into the next stanza) – mimetic of the
cascade of memories, unstoppable flow of thoughts. In last 3, pace is slowed with lots of
full stops to create a more stilted, pained tone when she is trying to shut away the past
and feels guilty for not living up to it.
, Voice and context
Ros Barber’s narrative follows her immersing herself in nostalgia for her childhood. The
memory of hankies stimulates the flow of her memories and longing for the lost past and
her mother (poem is written in response to grief when she died), and when she returns to
the present she feels guilty that she cannot live up to her mother’s example and fulfil
both the demands of a working womanhood and domestic motherhood, and that modern
life will not bring about the innocent childhood she had for her children.
Ros Barber reading the poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNIzgY7vCcY
Possible themes
• Nostalgia and memories, being torn between past, present and future
• Grief for her mother and for the comfort of the past
• Use of objects (e.g. the hanky) - synecdoche for a bygone era, doorway back in
time, loss of these objects represents the loss of that way of life and its values
through the passage of time and the loss of her mother
• Family relationships, childhood/parenthood
• Guilt, trying to live up to her mother
• Gender expectations
Hankies (and other objects/people listed) as a synecdoche for the past or symbol of other
ideas (chiefly nostalgia, some motherhood points here)
• “Not paper tissues bought in packs from late-night garages and shops” and later
“which demanded irons and boiling to be purified” – hanky is contrasted to tissues,
mundanity and modernity of ‘garages and shops’ and the lack of ‘material’ and
impermanence of tissues reflects a shift from the hard work and effort (almost
personified by ‘demanded’, requires hard work from mother) valued in the past to
modern demand for convenience and disposability at the cost of emotional
attachment. Adult appreciates her mother’s effort and feels guilty that isn’t like
her as a modern mother.
• “Things for waving out of trains and mopping the corners of your grief” – cinematic
image, close links to wars. Hanky has close connection with emotions, attachment
to them and interlinked with history, used for all rites of passage/throughout life
• “Hankies were presents from distant aunts” – hankies tied in closely with family,
connected by this gift, formality and tradition.
• “It was hankies that closed department stores, with headscarves, girdles, knitting
wool and trouser presses; homely props you’d never find today in malls.” – listing
effect of dated items from her childhood creates increased pace (less important
and dwelled upon than hankies?) mimetic of rush of her memories. This list could
also link to role of women in past – expected to be modest but attractive, provide
for the family and her husband by making things herself and going the extra mile as
a wife/mother, and this role has died out with women becoming more than just
mothers and wives.
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