![]() It’s a quintessentially Armitigian piece, fusing wit with arrestingly original imagery (the girls being ‘long and cool like cocktails’ in the summer heat) and with the distinctive colloquial voice Armitage uses so well. Probably the best poem ever written about sitting the General Studies A-Level exam, ‘You May Turn Over and Begin …’ is also about sexual desire and adolescence. Simon Armitage, ‘ You May Turn Over and Begin’. Duffy paints a fond picture of her time at primary school and on the brink of adolescence, powerfully suggested by the poem’s final image of the sky breaking into a thunderstorm.ĩ. There aren’t many modern or contemporary poems which recall schooldays with affection, but ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ does just that. Carol Ann Duffy, ‘ In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’. We love the final image of the streetlamps pinging into miniature suns, hinting at the new world that has opened up to the girls.Īs the title implies, this is the first in a sequence of adolescence poems Dove wrote – the others can be found online too if you enjoy the first …Ĩ. 1952), a contemporary African-American poet, adopts an almost imagistic precision here in this short poem about a particular memory of adolescence: when she and other teenage girls first heard from their friend what it was like to kiss a boy. We have offered some more words of commentary on this brilliant poem here. This classic Seamus Heaney poem, published in his first published volume, the 1966 book Death of a Naturalist, is simultaneously about picking blackberries in August and, on another level, about a loss of youthful innocence and a growing awareness of disappointment as we grow up. However, this sulky, sweary teenager-voice which Larkin sometimes adopts at the outset of some of his best poems then gives way to a more thoughtful, sympathetic voice, which understands that each generation has inherited (in both a genetic and cultural sense) certain things from the previous generation, not all of them favourable… Dove wants to audience to find a sense of innocence in their life in order to still be a child at heart.One of Larkin’s best-known poems, with an opening line containing one of the most controversial swear words in the English language (you have been warned!), this poem is not so much about adolescence as a poem which expresses a common adolescent view: that one’s parents are to blame for everything. This however changes with Linda's comment about boys, which eventually makes her wonder about adolescence.ĭove uses the topic of innocence to conclude the theme that people should have innocence in their life, because they will never know to view the world from a child's view. The friendly tone adds to the innocence of children, saying that children are always playful and their view of the world is different from the way the "streetlights ping" and turn "into miniature suns". It is as though the author is trying to relive the happy memory before learning about being an adolescent. The way she says "tickling grasses and whispered" and "A firefly whirred near my ear" shows that its a friendly attitude. The way Dove presents the poem shows the innocent mind of children. ![]() This is the start of letting the speaker wonder about becoming a teenager or adolescence. ![]() ![]() Linda adds the comment in order to show the child's innocence, because the speaker may not want to know about boys or how a boy's lips are. However, the girls are not talking about relationships they are basically playing and whispering to each other. At this time, Linda says, "A boy's lips are soft, As soft as a baby's skin," which is the start of introducing a lesson about relationships. The child is playing with her friend or sister when the grandmother, Linda, shows up. The speaker of the poem may be unclear, but it can be inferred that the speaker is a child. As Dove presents, innocence is something that is best kept in people all around, so they can see the world differently. This poem reflects the innocence of a child before turning into the change of the century: becoming a teenager. The poem reveals her childhood memories before the change of her life has started. This is one of Rita Dove's famous poems, "Adolescence I". Linda's face hung before us, pale as a pecan,Ī firefly whirred near my ear, and in the distance We knelt in the tickling grasses and whispered: In water-heavy nights behind grandmother's porch
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