Emphasise conflict Emphasises the importance – a personal poem Repetition Ambiguous – it is unclear A very small distance Metaphors – associated with USA, land of opportunity and freedom. Suggest a huge space beyond the size of walls and floors – adds the feelings of distance.Symbolises the mother being with the speaker’s beginning and infinite love.
Juxtaposition: ‘single’/‘second’ – reflects he is lonely
The speaker is distracting himself as he would be lonely.
Represents either toy/bird. Toy:
He is flying but she is holding onto
him. Bird: He wants to fly freely.
Keeps a boat secure – how he feels about his motherJuxtaposition – Bedrooms are associated with warmth and people being together but ‘empty’ shows that he is alone and isolated Mother, Any Distance Mother, any distance greater than a single span requires a second pair of hands.You come to help me measure windows, pelmets, doors, the acres of the walls, the prairies of the floors.You at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape, recording length, reporting metres, centimetres back to base, then leaving up the stairs, the line still feeding out, unreeling years between us. Anchor. Kite.I space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb the ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where something has to give; two floors below your fingertips still pinch the last one-hundredth of an inch...I reach towards a hatch that opens on an endless sky to fall or fly.Simon Armitage Flat land Conversational tone Metaphor - memories Metaphor – like the operation base of a space mission, somewhere safe that keeps running things smoothly.Extended metaphor (base) – he is like the astronaut connected to the ship Metaphor – the speaker doesn’t know whether to have complete
freedom or not, as he wants both:
freedom and to be still connected to his mother - it is ambiguous Emphasise freedom where he will face endless opportunities The miniscule amount on which she still clutches suggests a clear desperation to keep a hold on him
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