Understanding “Coming Home” by Owen Sheers

Building Background: Use the images to answer these questions:

1. What is your perception of time?

2. Is time important to you?
3. Do you know other works (movies or literary works) related to time? What are they?

The poem:

1 My mother’s hug is awkward,

As if the space between her open arms
is reserved for a child, not this body of a man.
In the kitchen she kneads the dough,
5 flipping it and patting before laying in again.
The flour makes her over, dusting
The hairs on her cheek, smoothing out wrinkles.

Dad still goes and soaks himself in the rain.

Up to his elbows in hedge, he works
10 on a hole that reappears every Winter,
its edges laced with wet wool –
frozen breaths snagged on the blackthorn.
When he comes in again his hair is wild,
and his pockets are filled with filings of hay.

15 All seated, my grandfather pours the wine.

His unsteady hand makes the neck of the bottle
shiver on the lip of each glass;
it is a tune he plays faster each year.

Comprehension:

A) Read poem again very quickly and find answers for the following questions:
1. Who are the characters represented in the poem?

2. How does Sheers present the passing of time in ‘Coming Home’?

3. How does Sheers organize the stanzas?

4. Why is the last stanza shorter than the other two?

5. How does gender function in the poem?

6. In the poem, the poet used many repetitive elements. What are they and what role do
they play in the poem?

B) Read the poem again very quickly and find answers for the following questions in
the stanzas specified:
1. In the first stanza, how does the speaker feel about the mother’s hug?

2. What does the author mean by “smoothing out wrinkles?”

3. In the second stanza, the poet starts with “dad” instead of father. Why do you think he
uses it? What is the significance of it when compared to “mother” in the first stanza
and “grandfather” in the last stanza?

4. In the final stanza, what does the speaker imply about the family relations?
5. What does the poet mean by “It’s a tune he plays faster each year?”

C) Read the poem again and find quotations about the following statements from the
poem:

Point Quote
In the first stanza, Sheers uses a powerful
image to illustrate the mother’s ageing
process.

Sheers uses present simple tense to give

the poem a more observational look.

The seasonal reference implies the family

has a yearly routine.

The auditory image in the last stanza ends

the poem with a lasting image of ageing.