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A Photograph-Shirley Toulson: The Poem Is A Tribute To The Poet's Mother. She Is

The poem is about a woman looking at an old photograph of her mother from a beach holiday when her mother was 12 years old. In the photo, her mother stands between her two younger cousins with the sea in the background. The woman feels sadness remembering her mother's laugh and stories from that time by the sea. It has now been 12 years since her mother passed away, the same age as her mother was in the photo. The poem reflects on the impermanence of life and human struggle to accept loss.

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Srishti Nagrath
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173 views

A Photograph-Shirley Toulson: The Poem Is A Tribute To The Poet's Mother. She Is

The poem is about a woman looking at an old photograph of her mother from a beach holiday when her mother was 12 years old. In the photo, her mother stands between her two younger cousins with the sea in the background. The woman feels sadness remembering her mother's laugh and stories from that time by the sea. It has now been 12 years since her mother passed away, the same age as her mother was in the photo. The poem reflects on the impermanence of life and human struggle to accept loss.

Uploaded by

Srishti Nagrath
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A PHOTOGRAPH- SHIRLEY TOULSON

 The poem is a tribute to the poet’s mother. She is


looking at an old photograph of her mother which has
a frame of cardboard. The picture has three girls in
which the middle one is the oldest and tallest.
 It is her mother when she was twelve years old or so.
Beside her, on both sides are her two cousins, Betty
and Dolly, who are holding her hands and are younger
than her. They went for paddling on a beach holiday.
Her uncle took the photograph then. The poet could
not help but notice her mother’s sweet face. The sea
touched her terribly transient feet which depicted that
she changed over the years and the sea remained the
same.
 After twenty-thirty years, her mother would laugh at
the photograph. She would make the poet look at the
photograph and tell her how their parents would dress
them up for the beach holiday. The beach holiday was
her mother’s favourite past memories while her laugh
was the poet's favourite memory. Both of them lost
something which they cherished a lot and yet cannot
live that moment again. Those sweet moments are
memories now.
 Now, the poet’s mother had been dead for the past
twelve years, which is the same number as of her age
when the photograph was taken back then. She cannot
express the grief that she has from her mother’s
absence.
 Terribly(adverb) transient(adjective) feet refers to the
feet of the 3 girls. The feet represents human
lives(synecdoche) and transient feet refers to
temporary life/impermanent nature of human life.
Terrible because death is certain and humans have not
come in terms with it. Feet is depicting human life. This
phrase means that human life is temporary.
Synecdoche is used here.
 Both the women would think of the past memories
which they cannot live again. They tried their best to
adjust to what they lost.
 Death has silenced her mother which has also left her
speechless.
 The phrase “Laboured ease of loss” is an oxymoron

which refers to the acceptance of loss and living with it.


In the poem, poet’s mother has lost her youth and has
learnt to live by bearing it. On the other hand, the poet
loses her mother and has learnt to live with it. It
requires a lot of struggle (labour) but in the end, we
have to accept the reality and live with it.

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