Summary
Summary anon poem analysis
- Module
- Feminine Gospels
- Institution
- AQA
anon poem analysis and annotations
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StudentsThe pronoun, the undefined “she”, suggests that the poem is
Anon about all women. The use of the subjunctive “were” creates a
sense of formality — subjunctive is rarely used now — despite
the later colloquialisms.
The last word, the shortened form of
“anonymous”, ends the stanza The jobs enumerated are typical of those chosen by women
emphatically. This is the non-identity because of the lack of opportunity to tackle anything else.
The alliterative “n"s add a note of humour, and suggest the
that women in history have taken. trivialisation of these jobs. They are, of course, not trivial, but
The word appears throughout the If she were here reinforce the idea of limitation. Women’s choices were, and
She’d forget who she was are still, curtailed.
poem, like a refrain or anaphora.
Its been so long
The key comment that remains with the reader is that “she’d
Note that the poem uses decreasing Maybe nurse, a nanny, forget who she was …” an indication of the loss of identity
line length to imitate the diminution Maybe a nun- suffered by many women, whose individuality is subsumed by
of the women’s status. roles that society expects of her. Furthermore, it could refer to
Anon. history and women’s collective memory. Looking at the
historical record, she would find virtually nothing about
Ironically, the word “anon” is herself. History has forgotten her, so she would be unable to
preceded by a caesura at the end of ‘remember’
line five, as if building up to a
dramatic climax… but the climax
never comes, a clever use of pathos Among the first two lines of the poem, Duffy repeats the female pronoun
‘she’ three times. This triple repetition of the female article demonstrates
the constant presence of females, Duffy representing their presence within
history through this technique.
The employment of the conditional tense within the first line, ‘If’ demonstrates that this poem will be fictional,
Duffy creating a scenario. This allows Duffy to remember the lost female voices of the past, while also
representing how they are not properly remembered in modern society – often only classified as ‘lost’ or
‘anon’.
The three professions that Duffy selects in this first paragraph relate to positions of education within society. In
fact, in early England, a ‘nun’ was the only profession that was taught to write, Duffy making a connection with
the lost literary history which was partly carried by these nuns. The consonance of ’n’ across the professions
creates a sense of cohesion within the poem, emblematic of the female presence and community that Duffy
champions in her collection.
Students
, Students
A girl I met
Was willing to bet The second stanza introduces the “girl I met”
That she still lived on- who “packed it all in/for a life in the sun”. The
Anon- women that the poet “meets” in the poem
But had packed it all in, represent all women. The implication is that
The best verb, the right noun, this persona convinced herself that she was
For a life in the sun fulfilled, despite abandoning her ambition. The
“life in the sun” is not to be taken literally; it is
a metaphor for the least stressful solution.
The arrival of rhyme schedule across the first four Many women are torn between the choices of
domesticity and motherhood on the one hand,
lines of the first stanza, in an AABB form, could signal
and career on the other. Those who choose the
how there have been elements of female writing passed former may tell themselves that they made the
right choice, but the narrator clearly believes
down over time. Indeed, the cohesion that the slight they are fooling themselves.
rhyme scheme provides echoes the connection of women
The “best verb, the right noun” is a metaphor
across generations, Duffy using structure to emphasize her ideas. for the alternative choice, the pursuit of her
career and development of her skills, that the
girl chose to “pack in”.
In the middle of the stanza the word “anon”
appears again, as if intruding, like the
The metaphor of the skull is obscure. It could represent her talent that she
has allowed to die, as well as the talent of the dead women of previous
generations. The gruesome, Gothic image, while amusing, also suggests
that the underlying meaning of the poem is serious. To waste one’s gift is
a tragedy.
This could also be an reference to Hamlet. It reminds us of when Hamlet
addresses Yorick’s skull when reflecting on the meaning of life (in a very
literary way!). Metaphorically, it could also represent her curtailed writing
and the stunting of her mental faculties.
The talented women of history, represented
by the skull, intrude. The metaphorical A woman I knew
clearing of its throat is the insistent demand Kept her skull
of women through the ages for recognition.
On a shelf in a room-
Also, “swore” is ambiguous and expresses
Anon’s
both the frustration felt by the women who
And swore that one day “Anon” appears yet again, now the owner of the
are silenced and the promise of truth.
As she worked at her desk skull. The repetition reinforces the theme of loss of
It cleared its throat identity and recognition.
Note the clever metaphor with the double
entendre. The skull needs to clear its airways As though it has something
but it is also signalling its need — and the To get off its chest
needs earlier generations of females — for
acknowledgement of what they have
contributed.
Duffy uses the assonantly rhyming “desk” and
“chest” to give the stanza unity and
Students
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