About The Poet: Shirley Taulson
Shirley Taulson was born in 1924 in Henley-on-Thames., England. She took her career as a writer by her passion and influenced by her father, who was also a writer. She got her education in English literature from the university of London. She was a journalist, editor and a local politician too.
She was mostly influenced by Celtic Christianity. Her major literary works such as 'Celtic Alternative' in 1987 and 'Celtic Year' in 1993 were based on the topic Celtic Christianity.
Her popular literary works:
The Drovers, 2008
Celtic Year,The Celtic l Year a Celebration of Celtic Christian Saints, Sites and Festivals, 2003
The Mendip Hills:A Threatened Landscape
The Shadows in an Orchard 1960
About the poem 'A Photograph'
The poem is the poet's tribute to her mother. It is a dysphoric poem, which captures three different mood of the poet in three different stanzas.
The poem describes three stages of the passage of time of the poet.
The first stanza describes about an old photograph of the poet's mother. In that photograph the poet's mother, along with her two cousins, holding each of the poet's mother's hand by each side were paddling. They smiled through their hair and paused before their uncle's camera. The surfing of the sea washed their bare mortal feet. They were enjoying a holiday on sea-beach. The old photograph was a memory of the poet of her late mother. The sea in the photograph was same as ever but the poet's mother was no more.
The first stanza is the poet's remembrance of her mother by looking at her old photograph.
The 'big girl'in the photograph was the poet's mother.She was then a twelve years old girl.The photograph showed she had a sweet face.It was the time before the poet was born.
The first stanza deals with the passage of time. The photograph holds the sweet memories alive of the poet's mother. The uncle's camera captured the jolly moments of her mother. The camera had also captured the sea which is still seen unchanged, only the poet's mother was no more.
The first stanza deals with a genuine truth that is nature is more permanent and long lasting then human life. Another fact is that the mortality of human being or the mutability of time. The photograph was then mere a 'cardboard' and that could hold the memories of the poet's mother alive ,though temporarily. Time's cruel hand will destroy the cardboard also. So everything on earth is temporary and undergo changes by time.
The second stanza is describing a different stages of time. The poet's mother was then a twenty or thirty years old a middle aged woman. The poet remembered how her mother laughed at looking her own photograph. The poet's mother became nostalgic by remembering her old happy days. She remembered her innocent young days. She remembered her two cousins-Betty and Dolley and laughed at by pointing to their dresses. The poet's mother remembered how were they so innocent that they could not even dressed up properly without the guidance of their parents.
The poet's mother recalled that moment with repentance that she had lost her carefree days which she couldn't get back again. The poet also repented for the absence of her mother that she couldn't see her mother's laughter again as many years had passed of her death.
Both the poet and the mother had lost something. For the poet's mother, sea-holiday was her past and for the poet, her mother's laughter was her past.
Both the poet and the mother had learnt to compromise their loss with ease. Both they were exhausted with their feeling of loss.The mother had lost her sea- holiday and the poet had lost her mother.
The poet's memory became alive by remembering the mother's laughter.
In the third stanza the poet says that many years have passed of her physical death. The poet knows nothing about the other two cousins wheather they are alive or not.
The poet says about the circumstances which is the life without her mother, because of her death . The poet was unable to express her feelings in words, which was the absence the poet bore after the death of her mother. And it was the silence that speaks for itself and nothing else.
Poetic devices used in the poem:
The poet uses certain poetic devices to bring out some poetic effect in the poem.
Allusion:
In the first stanza the word 'cardboard' is an allusion. An allusion is a reference, an incidental mention of something directly or by implication. The word cardboard actually means the photograph. The ironical implication is that the photograph or the cardboard is also an object to be gone destroyed in the cruel hand of time just like the death of the poet's mother.
Alliteration:
Alliteration is the repetition of the initial letter, generally a consonant letter in several words which makes a stressed syllable. Example from the poem-'stood still to smile'
'Terribly Transient'
'It's silence silences' etc.
Transferred Epithet:
It is a description that refers to a character or event but is used to describe a different situation or character.
Example from the poem:'transient feet'-which refers to human feet, but it implies the Transitoriness of human life.
Oxymoron:
It is a literary device in which two opposite ideas are joined to create an effect.
Example from the poem: 'laboured ease'. The word 'laboured' means with great difficulty.And the word 'ease' means comfortably.The two word jointly means more.
Personification:
When a human quality is attributed to an Inanimate object it is called personification. In this poem the word 'silence' is personified. It means silence can speak out for itself a lot.
Questions and answers:-
1.What does the word 'cardboard' denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?
Ans:-The word 'cardboard' denotes the photograph of the poet's mother which is hung on the wall.
The photograph was then mere a cardboard as the figure in the photograph, who was the poet's mother, was a dead person. The cardboard literally means a hard, thick paper which had been used to keep the photograph intact. But the cardboard would also be destroyed gradually by time.
The word cardboard is used in an ironical sense. The cardboard which preserved the photograph of the poet's mother and could hold her memory alive for sometime, itself would be an object of decay and destruction.Time's cruel hand would spare none. Like her mother in the photograph,though the photograph would be able to represent her memory for a period of time, would itself be vanished in course of time.
2.What has the camera captured?
Ans:-The uncle's camera has captured the cheerful images of the poet's mother along with her two cousin sisters when they went for a sea-holiday. . While taking the photograph all the three girls were standing with smile through their hair and their bare feet were washed by the sea-waves of the sea. The uncle's camera has captured their pretty and jolly images and the sea in the background very successfully.
3.What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?
Ans:-The sea in the photograph hasn't changed over the years. But the poet's mother was no more. Many years have been passed of her death. The poet declares a truth through her lines, that, nature and it's objects are more permanent then human life.
4.The poet's mother laughed at her snapshot.What did this laugh indicate?
Ans:-The laughter of the mother at seeing her own photograph indicates her nostalgic remembrance of her past. She laughed at by pointing out to their dresses that how their parents dressed them up for the sea-holiday. Her mother laughed at their funny dresses and remembered their innocence. Now the poet's mother discovered the fact that all three were quite innocent.
5.What is the meaning of the line, 'Both wry with the laboured ease of loss'?
Ans:-Both the poet and the mother were suffered from a loss which they tried to accept as a normalcy in life. The poet's mother, who was then a middle aged woman ,had lost her carefree childhood days. And the poet had lost her mother's laughter which was then a memory to the poet as her mother was dead.
This is a poetic device employed by the poet which is called Oxymoron. When the two word implies two opposite meaning altogether to creat a sense of a deeper understanding of a certain truth is called oxymoron. Example from the poem is the use of the phrase 'laboured ease '.
6.what does 'this circumstance' refer to?
Ans:-'This circumstances' refers to a situation which occurs due to the poet's suffering from absence because of the death of the mother.
7.The three stanzas depict three different phases. What are they?
Ans:-The poen 'A Photograph' depicts three different phases of the poet. The first phase is the poet's remembrance of the mother by looking at her photograph.It was taken before the poet was born. The photograph was a snapshot of a sea-holiday, enjoyed by a twelve years young girl who was the poet's mother, with her two cousins sister on a sea beach.
The poet also sees a deeper truth that human life is short whereas the sea in the photograph remains the same. The photograph, the poet calls it a cardboard as it became a memory of her mother only.
The second phase is the poet's reminiscences of her mother after twenty or thirty years later. The poet's mother was then a middle aged woman.The poet remembers how her mother laughed by pointing out at her own snapshot. The poet remembered her mother laughed at how funnily they dressed for the sea- holiday. The poet remembered how her mother became nostalgic about her carefree childhood days. At that moment the poet suffered for the absence of her mother. Both the poet and the mother tried to comfort themselves with much pain for what the time had taken away from both of them.
The third phase is about the 'circumstances', which is the suffering of the poet because of the absence of the mother and the poet's inability to express it in words.The only thing the poet could do was to remain silent. The silence itself would speak out the poet's feelings and nothing else.
8.What does the phrase 'transient feet' signifies in the context of the poem?
Ans:The word 'transient' implies the temporariness or mortal. The bare feet of the three girls and their pretty faces , which were washed by the sea-waves showed in the photograph are the objects of mortality. Whereas the sea in the photograph will remain unchanged for years or remained as same even after the death of her mother. A comparison is created between the mortal feet of the three girls and the sea, that the nature is more permanent and long lasting than the human being.
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