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A Photograph: By-Shirley Toulson
A Photograph: By-Shirley Toulson
Themes happy personal associations. The poet acquaint us with past happy moments related to
her mother’s childhood and happy days.
• Helplessness
• Acute sense of loss
• An embodiment of time and timelessness
The poem strongly hints at the eternal state of the natural being and ephemeral state of
the humans. Sea rarely changed but the mother of the poet met the horns of death.
• A melancholic poem
A photograph is melancholic to the utmost. We are acquainted here about loss, pain and
separation. The smiling photograph creates a pang in the heart of the poet as she
remembers and misses her mother with a doleful heart. The absence of her mother in her
life has made her life a gloomy one.
Cardboard : Pasteboard or stiff paper
Paddling : Present participle form of the word “paddle”, that is, to walk with bare feet in shallow water
Wry (Adj): (Of a person’s face or features) twisted into an expression of disgust, disappointment, or
annoyance
Labored (Adj): Alternate (American) spelling of the word “laboured”, which is in turn the past tense of
the word “labour”, that is, to have difficulty in doing something despite working hard
Immortality
• The sea
• Alliteration- Twenty thirty
Silence silences
Stood still to smile
Terribly transient
Poetic My mother’s
•For instance, you must have said, on so many occasions, “I have had such a
wonderful day!”. This is an example of a transferred epithet, because the ‘day’ was
not wonderful, but the experiences that you had that day made you feel
wonderful. The feeling of wonderfulness has been transferred from you to the day.
•The same would go for another common phrase, “I had a sleepless night”. Here
again, the night was not sleepless, you were.
•The poet is probably in her late twenties or
early thirties. She is sad.