English Speech – Assessment Task
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Using your exert as a basis for your personal interpretation, discuss the distinctive features of the text that allow it to be valued by a contemporary audience. You will need to refer to other sections of your text to validate your discussion. Good morning teachers and classmates, the dramatic reading I will be doing today is of Gwen Harwood’s Poem, “Mother Who Gave Me Life”
<Read “Mother Who Gave Me Life” (MWGML)> Throughout this poem I think Gwen Harwood explores a universal theme of loss as a distinctive feature throughout her poems, in particular loss of loved ones, which can be valued by contemporary audiences today due to it being an issue that is faced by everybody in their life at some point. When a loved one is no longer part of an individual’s life, one may experience grief and as a result realise the role and importance of that loved one. From my perspective, Harwood presents the concept of loss of loved ones through MWGML with the euphemism “You left the world so”, which highlights that her mother was not only a loss to her life but also a loss to the world, suggesting that she had great value and respect for her mother. There is a similar significance placed on her mother’s life that is stressed with the use of alliteration in “lived nearly thirty thousand days”. This presents the idea that she lived daily as a mother contributing to the lives of her children. Harwood also introduces a cloth motif in her poem, through the line “when she died she was folding a little towel” to highlight the importance of her day to day life. Harwood then sustains this motif later in her poem with “a fabric of marvels”. This motif, combined with “lived nearly thirty thousand days”, reinforces the concept that every day of her life was important. Also through the use of the emotive word “marvels” in the line “a fabric of marvels”, Harwood shows once again that she valued her mother’s life as a whole and realises the importance of it. A symbol of barriers is also included in hardwoods poem through “I closed the ward door of heavy glass between us”. This symbol is used to provide relief from emotional distress from the mother and from this, the grief that Harwood is going through from the loss of her mother is evident. As you can see this poem largely values the role that loved ones play in our lives and that we may only realise their great achievements and importance after it’s too late and we have already lost them and I believe the concept of loss would resonate strongly with most contemporary audiences as despite the fact that I have not lost any loved ones through my life, I still believe my interpretation of the poem is quite clearly evident. Throughout my reading of “Father and Child” I believe it also strongly backs up the recurring theme of loss throughout Harwood’s poems by exploring that a traumatic experience such as loss of loved ones can alter our perception of the world. I believe this concept is conveyed in Part I of her poem with the extended dual metaphor in “A horny fiend…angel-mild” and “owl blind”. I think this symbolises the boy and the owl as one as well as symbolising death. Though the metaphor, Harwood suggests the loss of innocence of the boy through the destruction of the owl. Also, combined with the use of enjambment in “child who believed death clean/…not this obscene/” the realisation the boy experiences is represented as he learns about the sanctity of life and the consequences of certain choices.
Part II of Father and Child also explore this with the persona facing the trauma of the death of his father. Using the allusion to King Lear and Hamlet, “Since there is not more to taste, ripeness is plainly all”, Harwood explores the transience of the human experience by likening it to fruit at its peak condition, with only deterioration to follow. Through this we see that the persona is attempting to come to terms with the thoughts of life without his father, which is then similarly represented in “Now the season that seemed incredible is come”. Harwood also uses end rhyme in “You take/ this late walk for my sake/”, to express the love shown to the persona by her father and represents that loss of anything in our life can have a particular affect on our outlook on the world but loss of someone close to us can intensify this. I have learnt wisdom through upsetting experiences such as loss and appreciate Harwood’s suggestion that we should be open to these challenging experiences that promote growth.
Throughout Harwood’s poems I see, particularly between links in MWGML and “Father and Child”, that the deep sense of loss, especially loss of loved ones, is a key concern that is universal throughout her poetry and can also be recognised and understood by many due to a common feeling or experience of loss.