Subject matter

Before You Were Mine

The poet is talking to her mother, having seen a photo of her mother as a teenager.

Picture courtesy of Katya Knyazeva

• She describes the photo of her mother standing laughing with two of her friends.
• She knows that the thought of having a child one day doesn't occur to her mother when young, when she was wrapped up in a world of dances and teenage dreams.
• Now remembering her own childhood, the poet thinks of how she used to play with her mother's red shoes and imagines when her mother might have worn those shoes to meet a boyfriend in George Square (in Glasgow).
• She remembers how her mother used to teach her dance steps when she was a child - yet even back then, the young poet wished she could have known her mother when still young and carefree, before she was a mother - 'Before you were mine'.

Structure and Language

Structure

The poem is written in four equal stanzasstanzas: Lines of poetry that make up a unit; verses. of five lines each. How does this help you to 'see' the poem?

• It may help you to visualise photos in an album, set out regularly over a page.
• It may help you to realise the regularity of time passing. (The poem keeps reminding us that ten years after the photo was taken, the happy, bold teenager had become a mother.)

Language

Picture courtesy of Snaethor Sigurbjorn Halldorsson

Think about how the language contributes to the mood of the poem. Here are some points to consider:

• There are many references to her mother as happy and bright - "you laugh / the bold girl winking in Portobello" ... "you sparkle and waltz and laugh"
• Life back then is seen as very glamorous. Her mother is likened to Marilyn Monroe and goes to a dance where a glitter ball hangs - "the thousand eyes". Her mother dreams of "fizzy, movie tomorrows" and she imagines her mother meeting a boyfriend "under the tree, with its lights".
• There is contrast [contrast: A description of all the differences between two things (in this case, two texts). ] between her mother's life as a teenager and as a mother of the young poet. The poet assumes her mother's life was better before her own "possessive, loud yell" was heard. The phrase "I'm not here yet" sounds almost like a warning to her teenage mother-to-be that the fun will end when she arrives.
• The poem is written in the present tense [tense: The verb formation which describes the time at which the action occurred, eg past, present or future. ], as if the events of the photo are happening now. Why do you think this is? Is the poet trying to make her mother's past as real as possible?
• The poet has a very confident, assertive voice, and makes definite statements: "I'm not here yet". She speaks to her mother in a familiar way: "The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh?"

Imagery and Sound

Couples dancing

The poem is dominated by the image of the family snap, the dog-eared photo that turns up many years after the event in a shoe-box or album, and leads to the (imaginary?) conversation recorded in this poem. Interestingly, there is no actual mention of this photo; but we can see it clearly in the description of the three-girls-out-on-the-town scene in stanzastanza: A group of lines of poetry that make up a unit - like a paragraph in a piece of prose; a verse. 1.

The poet deploys a great deal of glittering light to evoke the excitement of carefree teenage existence: the ballroom "fizzes" with light; the tree under which the mother is kissed has "lights" in it; mother and child "stamp stars" from the pavement as they cha-cha home from Mass; life before motherhood waltzes and "sparkles".

Sound

The poem is written to sound as if the poet is talking to her mother, so the poet follows the patterns of ordinary speech. Many phrases begin with I, as if the poet wanted to assert her presence even before she was a presence: 'I'm ten years away .. I knew you would dance like that.'

Attitude, Tone and Ideas

Much of the meaning of a poem is conveyed by the attitude it expresses toward its subject matter. 'Attitude' can be thought of as a combination of the poet's tone of voice, and the ideas he or she is trying to get across to the reader.

A good way to decide on the tone of a poem is to work out how you would read it aloud. How would you read this poem?

• admiringly, and with gratitude for the way her mother livened up her childhood - 'You'd teach me the steps on the way home from Mass'
• wistfully, dwelling on the poet's own memories ('I remember my hands in those red high-heeled shoes') and imaginings ('your ghost clatters towards me')
• ironically - contrasting the short-lived glamour of her mother's teenage life with the hard reality of motherhood
• affectionately - almost a love poem to her mother

Any of these tones would work. In fact the tone [tone: The mood or manner of a text or part of a text. The author's 'tone of voice' or way in which they expect to be understood. The emotional load carried by a text. ] shifts subtly from one to another, ending on a note of enduring love between daughter and mother - "That glamorous love" that lasts.

Ideas

Picture courtesy of David Williams

The following ideas are all contained within the poem. Which do you think come across most strongly?

• The poet romanticises her mother and the glamorous life she used to lead.
• The poet longs to see her mother as she once was, before she was tied down with motherhood.
• The poet recognises that all mothers have mothers - her mother's mother used to 'stand at the close with a hiding for the late one', perhaps as the poet's mother now watches out for her...
• The poet is re-examining her own feelings as a daughter.

Comparison

In the exam, you will be required to write about several poems, some pre-1914 and some post-1914. To which poems would you compare Before You Were Mine? There will be a number of ways in which the poems can be compared, and you may well be able to think of ones which we have not!

Now try a Test Bite

Before You Were Mine: Test

Read this question carefully. It is similar to the type of question you will be asked in the exam.

Sample Question

In answering this question you might comment on:

• how language is used
• the form and structure

Now have a go at answer the question, just as you would do in the exam.

• Allow yourself ten minutes.
• Remember Point - Quote - Comment (Make a point, support it with a quotation, and then explain how the quote reinforces the point you are making. )

When you've finished, hit Next to look at some sample answers to this question...

Before You Were Mine: Test (sample answers)

Below are some sample answers which examiners would mark at different grades.

If your answer was closest to Answer 1 - well done! If not, it might be a good idea to look back over the Revision Bite.