Before You Were Mine Carol Ann Duffy

1. Before You Were MineCarol Ann Duffy

2. Starter • Write down your earliest memory of your parents.

3. Learning Objectives As we study this poem you will learn about: • The story of the poem • Memory Poems • More about the terms, Memory Poem: Key Feature: Visual & Sensual Imagery. • You will also complete some mini tasks, a test and an assignment on the poem.

4. I'm ten years away from the corner you laugh on with your pals, Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff.  The three of you bend from the waist, holding each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement. Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn. I'm not here yet. The thought of me doesn't occur in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows the right walk home could bring. I knew you would dance like that. Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close with a hiding for the late one. You reckon it's worth it. The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh? I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics and now your ghost clatters toward me over George Square till I see you, clear as scent, under the tree, with its lights, and whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart? Cha chacha! You'd teach me the steps on the way home from Mass, stamping stars from the wrong pavement. Even then I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello, somewhere in Scotland, before I was born. That glamorous love lasts where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine.

5. Mini Task 1 I'm ten years away from the corner you laugh on The three of you bend from the waist, holding each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement. Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn. I'm not here yet. • Look at the first five lines. What is the poet doing? • How can she not be there yet? • What does the first line mean?

6. Mini Task 1 I'm ten years away from the corner you laugh on The three of you bend from the waist, holding each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement. Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn. I'm not here yet. • Look at the first five lines. What is the poet doing? Looking at old photographs of her mother when she was a teenager. • How can she not be there yet? She hasn’t been born yet. • What does the first line mean? It’s 10 years before she will be born. Her mother would have been about 15 years old.

7. The Story Of The Poem - Stanza 1 Carol Ann Duffy is looking through some old photographs of her mother’s. In the first one her mother is on a corner with two friends and they are laughing as her dress blows up around her legs. This image reminds the poet of the famous still of Marilyn Monroe from the movie The Seven Year Itch. Her mother is NOT called Marilyn! I'm ten years away from the corner you laugh on with your pals, Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff.  The three of you bend from the waist, holding each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement. Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.

8. Mini Task 2 I'm not here yet. The thought of me doesn't occur in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows the right walk home could bring...... • Why is she ‘not here yet’? • What are the ‘thousand eyes’? • What is the ‘right walk home’? • What are ‘fizzy movie tomorrows’?

9. Mini Task 2 I'm not here yet. The thought of me doesn't occur in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows the right walk home could bring...... • Why is she ‘not here yet’ and not thought about? She hasn’t been born and the last thing her mum is thinking about is having children! • What are the ‘thousand eyes?’ A mirrorball – very popular in ballrooms. • What is the ‘right walk home?’ Getting walked home by a boy.... • What are ‘fizzy movie tomorrows? ....who then asks you on a date....to the movies .....with the promise of fizzy coke and........

10. ......... I knew you would dance like that. Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close with a hiding for the late one. You reckon it's worth it. Another photo, this time of her mother dancing (perhaps wearing the red shoes).... .....and then I think a remembered story she had been told of the time Carol’s mother came home late from a date and her mother was waiting up for her to give Carol’s mother a good ‘hiding’ (spanking) for being late. This is the sort of street her mother would have lived and grown up in in Glasgow, Scotland.

11. The Story Of The Poem – Stanza 2 In this stanza Carol Ann Duffy begins to think about her mother’s life in the years before she was born and how free and happy she was. The she looks at another photo, this time of her mother dancing and remembers a story she had been told of the time her mother came home late from a date and got a good ‘hiding’ (spanking) for being late. But her mother must have told Carol it was worth it. I'm not here yet. The thought of me doesn't occur in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows the right walk home could bring. I knew you would dance like that. Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close with a hiding for the late one. You reckon it's worth it.

12. Mini Task 3 The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh? I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics • Why is this ‘decade...the best one’? • How old are the red shoes?

13. Mini Task 3 The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh? I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics • Why is this ‘decade...the best one’? Her mother is young, free and single and has not got family responsibilities to worry about. • How old are the red shoes? At least 15 years if the ones she plays with are the same shoes her mother is wearing in the photograph.

14. Mini Task 4 and now your ghost clatters toward me over George Square till I see you, clear as scent, under the tree, with its lights, and whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart? • What is her mother’s ‘ghost’? • What is ‘clear as scent’ an example of? • What are the ‘small bites’ in the last line?

15. Mini Task 4 and now your ghost clatters toward me over George Square till I see you, clear as scent, under the tree, with its lights, and whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart? • What is her mother’s ‘ghost’? She is meeting her mother in George Square, Glasgow, and the old woman coming to meet her is the ‘ghost’ of the vibrant young woman in the photographs. • What is ‘clear as scent’ an example of? Sensual Imagery (Smell). • What are the ‘small bites’ in the last line? Love bites.....another photo or a detail now noticed in one she has looked at. (Perhaps why the ‘hiding’ was worth it?)

16. The Story Of The Poem – Stanza 3 • This is a complex stanza as it exists in several time frames. • Ten years before Carol was born • The present where she is meeting her mother • The recent past where she looked at the photos, unless she has the photos with her at George Square. • As a young girl playing with her mother’s red shoes. • It is a very poignant stanza as Carol compares the old lady who comes to meet her with her memories of her mother as a child and the photos of the vibrant girl her mother was as a teenager. • Poignant: aprofoundly moving; touching: a painful scene or memory. The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh? I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics and now your ghost clatters toward me over George Square till I see you, clear as scent, under the tree, with its lights, and whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart?

17. Mini Task 5 cha cha! You'd teach me the steps on the way home from Mass, stamping stars from the wrong pavement.. What's special about the ‘cha cha’? How does her mother manage to ‘stamp stars’?

18. Mini Task 5 cha cha! You'd teach me the steps on the way home from Mass, stamping stars from the wrong pavement.. What's special about the ‘cha cha’? It’s a fast energetic dance. How does her mother manage to ‘stamp stars’? By catching the steel tip of her high-heeled shoes on the edge of an uneven (wrong) pavement.

19. Mini Task 6 ...................Even then I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello, somewhere in Scotland, before I was born. That glamorous love lasts where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine. When does Carol want her mother? What ‘mother’ does she want? Where does the ‘glamorous love last?

20. ...................Even then I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello, somewhere in Scotland, before I was born. That glamorous love lasts where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine. When does Carol want her mother? As a young girl What ‘mother’ does she want?The youthful, vibrant, glamorous girl in the photographs . Where does the ‘glamorous love last? In the past, fixed forever by photographs.

21. The Story Of The Poem – Stanza 4 Carol remembers a silly moment with her mother she enjoyed as a child, a moment that now reminds her of the youthful girl in the photographs she has looked at. This in turn makes her remember that even as a girl she wanted her mother to be the girl she was, not the woman she had become. So this is a memory poem, but the memories seem to have more to do with what has been lost than the day-to-day realities of the character’s lives. So, in the poem, Carol’s mother goes from being a female icon like Marilyn Monroe to the ghost of her former self. Cha chacha! You'd teach me the steps on the way home from Mass, stamping stars from the wrong pavement. Even then I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello, somewhere in Scotland, before I was born. That glamorous love lasts where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine.