Ace Your Literature

(Form 4)

The Living Photograph

Jackie Kay
 The Living Photograph (Jackie Kay)
The Poet
Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1961 to a Scottish mother
and a Nigerian father. She was adopted by a white couple at birth and
was brought up in Glasgow, studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of
Music and Drama and Stirling University where she read English. She
also Studied.

Her first novel, Trumpet, published in 1998, was awarded the Guardian
Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin
Literary Award. Inspired by the life of musician Billy Tipton, the novel
tells the story of Scottish jazz trumpeter Joss Moody whose death
revealed that he was, in fact, a woman. Kay develops the narrative
through the voices of Moody's wife, his adopted son and a journalist
from a tabloid newspaper.

Her books, Why Don't You Stop Talking (2002), Wish I Was Here (2006),
and Reality, Reality (2012) are collections of short stories, and she has
also published a novel for children, Strawgirl (2002). Her collection of
poetry for children, Red, Cherry Red (2007) won the 2008 CLPE Poetry
Award
Introduction

• The living photograph is

about a grandchild
looking at a photograph
of his/her departed
grandmother and
remembering her. Even
though the grandmother
is gone, the photograph
keeps her alive in the
grandchild’s memory.
Stanza 1
Line 1: My grandmother is tall there.

The word ‘there’ refers to the old photograph.

Line 2: Straight back, white broderie anglaise shirt

Line 3: Pleated skirt, flat shoes, grey bun

Grandmother wears a white embroided shirt, a

pleated skirt and flat shoes. Her hair is tied up in a
bun.
Line 4: A kind, old smile round her eyes

Grandmother eyes look kind.

Line 5: Her big hand holds mine

Line 6: white hand in black hand

Grandmother is holding the granchild’s white hand

in her black one. This tells us that the grandchild
may be of mixed parentage.
Line 7: Her sharp blue eyes look her own death in
the eye.

Grandmother has sharp blue eyes and they seem to

look at death without fear. This reveals that
grandmother is growing old and death is
unavoidable.
Stanza 2
Line 8: It was true after all; that look

‘was’ – how she remembers her grandmother used to

be or the look that a grandmother give that she was
expecting death was true.
• Has become smaller in size
Line 9 : My tall grandmother became small.
•Line 10:Line
Line Her back round and hunched.

Grandmother becomes shorter as her back grows bent

with age.
Line 11: She went to the awful place grandmothers
go.
Line 12: Somewhere unknown, unthinkable.

‘Her soup forgot to boil’ – forgetful, senile, signs of

dementia
She passes away and goes to a place that is
unimaginable to the persona
Stanza 3
Line 13: But there she is still,
Line 14: In the photo with me at three,
Line 15: the crinkled smile is still living, breathing.

•‘is’ – in the photograph (still living in her heart)

•Feels her grandmother’s presence whenever she
looks at the photograph
•She wants to remember her as a healthy person, not
old and fragile
Setting
• There is no mention of place and time. The
persona looks at an old photograph taken with
her grandmother when she was only three
years old. Going through an old photo album
could indicate an indoor or living room setting.
But there is no expressed statement to validate
that.
Theme
• Love and fond memories of a person who has
passed away. It also declares how fond
memories are perpetuated by an old
photograph
• The positive image people create in
remembrance of a departed person
• Coping with grief and loss – one way is to
hang on to the good memories of a person
Moral Values
• We must strive for close family relationships.
• We should love and appreciate our family
members while they are still alive.
• We must not dwell on the past too much.
• We should learn to let go of the dead.
 References
• http://literature.britishcouncil.org/jackie-kay