This document covers the poem: 'To My Nine Year Old Self' from the Poems of the Decade Poetry. I studied this poem for my A Level, Edexcel English Literature Exam as part of the poetry module. By constructing these summarises and notes these provided me with ideas and themes which I could for my es...
• Addresses like a letter
• To past self
• Personal pronoun equally separates the two. Persona adapted from this time
• ‘nine-year old’. Time of beginning to discover themselves while still very much within the
constraints and wonder occurring of childhood.
Structure:
• Encourages the viewpoint that his is a personal and thoughtful piece of writing rather than
something that has been crafted for another reader
• Free verse and lack of form and structure mirrors free-spirited nature of personas nine-year old
self
• Rhythm of poem broken in the beginning through the caesura ‘forgive me’ creating a reflective
tone to suggest the negative elements or of some kind of betrayal has taken place.
• Inconsistent line length especially in the first stanza which represents the growing and changing
of stories and memories the narrator has which feels more ‘natural’ to the reader than a
controlled structure.
• The change in lengths of the stanzas corms this idea of uncertainty. Appear to get shorter as the
poem progresses. Could ambiguously suggest the loss of interest in life or the corruption that
causes the persona to limit herself in life now as a result
• Immediate parataxis ‘You must forgive me’ in itself expresses there is no other way. As following
by a semantic field of childhood innocence and activities, this first sentence ominous highlights
the change that will comes.
• Frequent commas for breaks in the rhythm throughout the poem, which adds layers of
emotions and pauses for reflection. Caesuras after ‘scars,’ and ‘remember how, three minutes’.
Expresses that with each action comes a consequence for the persona. Equally the frequent
asuras acts to force the reader to question the cruel nature of the world in which this nin-year
old grows up in.
• Punctuation at the end of stanza two in the only question mark in the poem which emphasises
the difference between the persona as the child and the present. The use of the rhetorical
question in ‘into the summer morning’ suggests the struggle for the persona to remember or
identify with this girl now. Not only expresses the change that has occurred over time, but
resembles the corruption to the persona as time passed.
• Use of ‘dashes’ after ‘something else came up’ and other events expresses the transition
occurring over time for the persona. Expresses the change in attitudes over time that occurred
as a result of each action leading her further away from her dream. Causes the persona to
reflect on the dreams that they have let pass as a result of their childhood. Equally, these
dreams changing over time.
• Transition in the poem on how it changes between the stanzas. Childhood semantic field
changes to the danger the persona is in in the outside world.
, • End-stopped lines with full stops and question marks but eventually these change to commas
and hyphens. It allows a more constant flow of speech with less separation which helps the
reader to understand the personas growing emotion and lack of clarity in this ‘letter’ as they
become more consumed by memories and nostalgia. Reader is meant to reflect on their own
distance from their childhood as they’ve grown up
Language:
• The poem begins with the idea of ‘you must forgive me’ causing the sentence to be relatively
forceful opening to the poem. It makes the reader apprehensive for what should be forgiven.
The direct address ‘you’ as the opening word introduces idea of dialogue within the poem which
the readers introduced to.
• ‘Don’t look so surprised, / perplexed, and eager to be gone’. The list of three not only helps to
highlight the short attention span of a child, but equally these three abstract nouns express the
free will of the child and her blissful ignorance to the world around. Persona is remorseful of a
time when she too could run away from her problems
• ‘Balancing on your hands on the tightrope’ Dunmore uses this imagery to express the dangers
that are induced by the girl. Not only does the dynamic verb ‘balancing’ become a metaphor for
life in the suggestion of the choices that human make to find their own path in life. Equally this
could be ambiguous to reflect that changes that can occur at any movement that could change
the girl's life. In a sense the symbol of the ‘tightrope’ creates the idea of the personas need for
pervasion, expressing the danger of the activity in which she is carrying out. Rose tinted view of
childhood
• ‘Run than walk, rather climb than run/ rather leap from a height than anything’. They dynamic
verb ‘run’, ‘climb’, ‘leap’ expresses the carefree nature of childhood. Perhaps this itself becomes
nostalgic for the reader who is able to reminisces on their own childhood and their naivety to
any possible dangers.
• ‘I have spoiled this body we once shared’ places Blame onto the narrator with the additional
stress on ‘I’ due to its opening the second stanza. The use of ‘spoiled’ become significant
because it simultaneously demonstrates the impact that the present today and that it was once
‘better’ potentially with greater innocence and happiness.
• Semantic field created through ‘spoiled’, ‘scars’, ‘bad’ and ‘bruised’ emphasises the harsh reality
that has had harsh implications for them over time. Remorse of the fact that she has ruined her
body over time.
• ‘Do you remember how, three minutes after waking/ we’d jump straight out of the ground floor
window/ into the summer morning?’ Rhetorical question not only uses enjambment to express
the free flowing and carefree nature of the persona jump. However, the lexical opening ‘do’ add
the implication from the persona to her younger self the fact she can no longer do this. Placing it
in the third tense to her nine-year old self who could still by jumping from the window hints the
danger from this. Equally could be a metaphor for the dreams the persona had resulted in being
unachievable due to the tasks of life.
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