Analysis of A Photograph
“POEM”
A PHOTOGRAPH
The cardboard shows me how it was
When the two girl cousins went paddling,
Each one holding one of my mother's
hands,
And she the big girl- some twelve years or
so.
All three stood still to smile through their
hair.
At the uncle with the camera, A sweet face,
My mother's, that was before I was born.
And the sea, which appears to have
changed less
Washed their terribly transient feet .
Some twenty-thirty-years later
She'd laugh at the snapshot. “See Betty
And Dolly,” she'd say, “and look how they
Dressed us for the beach.” The sea holiday
Was her past, mine is her laughter. Both
Wry with the laboured ease of loss.
Now she's been dead nearly as many years
As that girl lived. And of this circumstance
There is nothing to say at all.
Its silence silences.
Scheme | XX XXXXXXAA XXXXX XXBBXX XXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (32%) |
Metre | 10 010 0111111 1011101100 111011110 1 010111111 1 11111111 1 101010100011 1101101111 00110111 11 11100101 11010110 11101110 010110111 111010110 101110101 1101111 1111101101 111101110 11101111 110100 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,039 |
Words | 167 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 8, 5, 6, 4 |
Lines Amount | 25 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 121 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
About this poem
A Photograph' is a loving tribute to her mother. The poem reflects the passage of time and its three stages. In the first stage, the photograph shows his mother enjoying a holiday on a beach along with her two girl cousins. She was 12 at the time.
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Written on October 15, 2022
Submitted by borasakshi976 on October 15, 2022
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 51 sec read
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"A Photograph" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/142361/a-photograph>.
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