Catrin
by Gillian Clarke is the love and constant combat that define
I can remember you, child,
As I stood in a hot, white
Room at the window watching
The people and cars taking
Turn at the traffic lights.
I can remember you, our first
Fierce confrontation, the tight
Red rope of love which we both
Fought over. It was a square
Environmental blank, disinfected
Of paintings or toys. I wrote
All over the walls with my
Words, coloured the clean squares
With the wild, tender circles
Of our struggle to become
Separate. We want, we shouted,
To be two, to be ourselves.
Neither won nor lost the struggle
In the glass tank clouded with feelings
Which changed us both. Still I am fighting
You off, as you stand there
With your straight, strong, long
Brown hair and your rosy,
Defiant glare, bringing up
From the heart’s pool that old rope,
Tightening about my life,
Trailing love and conflict,
As you ask may you skate
In the dark, for one more hour.
Commented [SG1]: Subject Matter: The subject of ‘Catrin’
the relationship between a child and a parent. The poem is
autobiographical in nature as Clarke dwells upon her
relationship with her daughter. The poem is focused on
Catrin, as the title suggests, and exposes Catrin’s resistance
to her mother.
Purpose: The poet’s purpose is to communicate with her
daughter her thoughts and feelings about the turbulent
relationship they share while also conveying to her the
underlying love between them. Clarke wishes to expose the
emotions associated with motherhood, and how mothers
react as their children grow up and struggle for their own
identity and independence.
...
Commented [SG2]: Topic: Clarke uses imagery and first
person voice to reveal the setting and speaker’s state as she
stood waiting in the hospital room before giving birth to
Catrin.
The poem starts powerfully with the speaker’s voice and
the theme of memory as a mother waits to give birth to
her child. Clarke highlights that a mother-daughter
relationship starts even before the child is born through
the speaker’s powerful memory of the event of waiting in
the hospital, reflected in her declaration that she ‘can
remember’ her child. Use of past tense in the rest of the...
Commented [SG3]: Topic: Employing figurative language,
Clarke shows the complexity of mother-child relationship.
The speaker’s memory of her first conflict with Catrin is
hinged on the moment of birth.
Alliterative ‘f’ in ‘first/Fierce confrontation’ and the
repetition of the ‘f’ in ‘Fought’ depict that a mother’s
connection with her child starts with a fight. The
hyperbolic adjective ‘fierce’ serves as a unique
perspective on the event of birth.
the birth of the baby is shown metaphorically as a battle
between the baby and the mother over the ‘Red rope of
love’ where the ‘red rope’ represents the umbilical cord ...
Commented [SG4]: Topic: Through metaphorical language
and imagery, Clarke portrays the development of the
speaker’s complex relationship with Catrin.
Clarke depicts the confrontations between the speaker
and Catrin through the way the clean, ‘disinfected’ walls
get filled. While the child fills up the blank walls literally
with colours and marks, shown earlier as ‘paintings’, the
speaker does so metaphorically with her ‘words’. Her
thoughts and feelings about the increasing struggle
between the two individuals are depicted through the
‘words’ that she writes. ‘Words’ connote poetry here if
Clarke is seen to be the speaker. ...
Commented [SG5]: Topic: Clarke uses shift in time to build
on the idea that the fierce fight between a mother and child
that starts at birth continues to the present. She depicts it
as endlessly confrontational, with neither one ever winning
the battle.
Clarke creates the metaphorical setting of the speaker
and her daughter to be trapped in a ‘glass tank clouded
with feelings’ to show that their own subjective emotions
clouded or distorted their vision.
Their battles were fought in this clouded glass tank.
Hence, ‘neither won nor lost the struggle’. Clarke also
shows the impossibility of either the mother or the ...