by Carol Ann Duffy

Y
ou could travel up the Blue Nile
with your finger, tracing the route
while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery.
Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan.
That for an hour, then a skittle of milk
and the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust.
A window opened with a long pole.
The laugh of a bell swung by a running child.

This was better than home. Enthralling books.

The classroom glowed like a sweetshop.
Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. Brady and Hindley
faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake.
Mrs Tilscher loved you. Some mornings, you found
she'd left a gold star by your name.
The scent of a pencil slowly, carefully, shaved.
A xylophone's nonsense heard from another form.

Over the Easter term the inky tadpoles changed

from commas into exclamation marks. Three frogs
hopped in the playground, freed by a dunce,
followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking
away from the lunch queue. A rough boy
told you how you were born. You kicked him, but stared

at your parents, appalled, when you got back home.

That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity.

A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot,
fractious under the heavy, sexy sky. You asked her
how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled,
then turned away. Reports were handed out.
You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown,
as the sky split open into a thunderstorm.

Background:
'In Mrs Tilscher's Class' is taken from a collection of poems entitled The Other Country. In her poetry Duffy
frequently uses her memory and imagination to reach back into that 'other country'. 'In Mrs Tilscher's Class' sets
out superbly the poet's memories of the change from childhood to adolescence, pinning down the movement from
the pleasures and security of a happy childhood to the first uneasy stirrings of sexuality and the adult world.

This poem is autobiographical, but more obviously so. Mrs. Tilscher is a real person, who taught Carol Ann
Duffy in her last year at junior school. The poem is about rites of passage, the transition (move or change) from
childhood to adolescence and the things we learn at school, from our teachers and from our peers. Duffy also
associates the oppressive feeling we have in humid weather with the physical changes of puberty. Leaving primary
school for the last time is like an escape we are eager to make but which takes us from safety into a dangerous
unknown. Throughout the poem Duffy refers to "you". She means herself as she was in Mrs. Tilscher's class in the
1960s. But by writing in the second person she invites us to share her experience. Most readers will have had
experiences like those Carol Ann Duffy depicts in this poem.

Poetry | senior- one 1

Paraphrasing:
The first stanza has no real hint of what is to come: Duffy shows us a typical day in Mrs. Tilscher's class. While
the children trace the route with their fingers on a map, the teacher tells them the names of places on the Blue
Nile.they are taught information, into intricate detail. For example the poem begins with the line, 'you could travel up
the blue Nile with your finger'. This simply begins the world of imagination to which each and every child is
subjected. Straight after that, the poem goes on to describe how the children are chanted the scenery of the world
by Mrs Tilscher. She remarkably inserts images of geographical places, historical events and general knowledge
firmly in the children's brains After an hour comes playtime and a bottle of milk. Other familiar images from school
are the window-pole and the handbell. "The laugh of a bell swung by a running child" may be what is known as a
transferred epithet - it is this child (or others, but not the bell) who will be laughing at the end of the lesson.
Alternatively, "laughing" may be a metaphor for the vigorous ringing of the bell.

"Better than home" may seem odd.But Duffy means that there was more to do and to satisfy an intelligent child's
imagination than in her home. The bright colours would be more exciting than home decoration. Although Ian Brady
and Myra Hindley (the so-called "Moors Murderers" of the 1960s) have become notorious for their child murders,
real children at the time were not necessarily very aware, and probably not afraid, of them. And in school any fears
would disappear. Duffy likens this fading of fear to the fading of a faint smudge where one corrects a mistake
written in pencil. The children think that their teacher loves them, and see a "good gold star" on their work as proof
of this. Over the four stanzas of the poem there is a progression from the timeless memories of the sights and
sounds and feelings of the primary classroom to an increasingly exact sense of time and the period of the early
1960s, and specifically in the final stanza to the last day of the summer term of her last year at primary school.

The sensually remembered paradise of Mrs Tilscher's class - 'the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust', 'The laugh of
a bell', 'The scent of a pencil slowly, carefully, shaved' - is gradually invaded by less comforting images that either
come from the adult world - 'Brady and Hindley / faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake' or are disturbing
signs of the changes on their way - 'the inky tadpoles changed / from commas into exclamation marks'. In the final
stanza even Mrs Tilscher turns away from the questions raised by the 'rough boy' about 'how you were born'. Left
alone with her confusion in the face of impending adulthood:

You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown, as the sky split open into a thunderstorm

Imagery:
 The poem appears to open in the middle of a lesson and it is this seeming 'naturalness that makes the
world of school come back to life. Memory is resurrection as well as recollection.
 For Duffy is reanimating a lost world through a highly selective series of images and ideas which have to
represent experiences now well out of view.
 'You could travel up the Blue Nile /with your finger..' revisits the wonder and freshness of Primary .
 the recurring blue colour of all the world's water shows the unique naivety of experience at school that
defines it and makes it singular.
 A simile is used to describe the classroom, "glowed like a sweet shop." The poet has chosen to compare a
class and a "sweet shop" because the class was full of bright colours. It reminds the reader of happy
Memories.
 We are also anchored into the highly sensory world of primary school so that we feel this journey back into
the past almost physically so that we are listening as Mrs Tilscher 'chanted the scenery' or smelling the
'scent of a pencil' or basking in the pleasure of 'a good gold star.' these images only work as they are both
local and universal.
 primary worlds seems safe and secure; even killers are relegated to being an 'uneasy smudge of a
mistake' through the lovingly observed procedures and rituals of school routines.

Poetry | senior- one 2

Commentary

Subject and theme: about rites of passage, the transition from childhood to the adult world, from security of
childhood to dangers outside school gates, symbolized by sexual knowledge. Child's view of the world - school is
“better than home”, thinking that the teacher loves you. Poem ends with child wanting to move on, as teacher
implicitly accepts the “rough” boy's account of sex, but will not say it directly. Treatment of tadpoles hints at the
cruelty in the adult world.

Structure: oddly written in the second person, so reader identifies with “you” of poem, who could be poet or any
child at school. A mix of narration and description but with chronological movement - ends with leaving primary
school for good.

Key images: many details of inside of school, which is likened to a “sweet shop”; “good gold star” is a transferred
epithet: the child who receives it is good, not the star; tadpoles described as punctuation marks, which children
learn to write; “Brady and Hindley” suggest the dangers of the adult world; weather and electricity suggest mood -
“thunderstorm” marks the onset of puberty.

Activities
1. The poem is written in the second person. From whose point of view is it written? Is it the poet's own view
or anyone's? How do you know?
2. Highlight one metaphor and one simile from the poem
3. What are the poet’s feelings towards her teacher and her lessons?
4. One’s senses are stirred when one reads this poem. How has the poet done this and what effect does this
have on the reader?

Poetry | senior- one 3