National 5 Set Texts

‘Gap Year’

‘It’s my first experience of having him away this length of time and I’m missing him dreadfully.’ Jackie Kay, Sunday Times, 25/03/14

Analysis

Before you look at the poem, bullet point the connotations the title of the poem suggests to you. What do you think it will be about? What do you think the key theme/message will be?

• Highlight and identify the key poetic techniques used (word choice, imagery, repetition, tone etc.)

• Analyse how these techniques are used to convey the speaker’s personality, views, key themes etc.

‘Gap Year’ comes towards the end of the collection and addresses the feeling experienced by all parents when their children leave home.

‘It seems like a relevant circle, between ‘The Adoption Papers’ and then having my own baby, and then having my baby growing up and going back out into the wide world.’

Jackie Kay (interview with the Sunday Times 25/03/07)

I

I remember your Moses basket before you were born.I’d stare at the fleecy white sheet for days, weeks,willing you to arrive, hardly able to believeI would ever have a real baby to put in the basket.

Her on her own, excited, eager, waiting for her son’s birth

Title: • Alludes to physical ‘gap’ between Kay and Matthew• Also reflects the 18 years that have felt like a short ‘gap’ to Kay

between Matthew’s birth and him now being 18

Image of basket referred to at end of poem – framing deviceStarts with Matthew absent and Kay yearning – how the poem also ends

Word choice – ‘stare’ – repeated throughout poem, conveying intensity of longing as does ‘willing you to arrive’ – sentiment repeated at end of the poem

Inability to believe baby will arrive reflected at start of section 2 when cannot imagine his return from Gap Year

I’d feel the mound of my tight tub of a stomach,and you moving there, foot against my heart,elbow in my ribcage, turning, burping, awake, asleep.One time I imagined I felt you laugh.

Metaphor – image of a container. By the end of poem, it is clear Matthew cannot be contained and her sadness/acceptance that she must let him live his life how he chooses.

Word Choice and list of baby’s actions of ‘foot against my heart’ and ‘elbow in my ribcage’ – source of joy and pain. Always able to feel him near; now, she cannot. Reflected at end of poem with mixed emotions of pride and longing.

Synaesthesia ‘felt you laugh’ –– closeness of pregnancy. His experiences are hers. (cf. later in poem when she experiences happiness/joy vicariously)

I’d play you Handel’s Water Music or Emma Kirkbysinging Pergolesi. I’d talk to you, my close stranger, call you Tumshie, ask when you were coming to meet me.You arrived late, the very hot summer of eighty-eight.

• Oxymoron – ‘close stranger’ – physically close but unknown. Mirrored/inverted at end of poem: mother-son bond is close, but he has become a stranger physically through distance

• This section adds to atmosphere of contentment, calm and peacefulness.

• Highlights/emphasises connection between them (e.g. pet name/term of endearment that she shares only with him so we can understand how empty/lost she felt when he left.)

• You arrived late – almost accusatory – like he kept her waiting for him, on his terms, even then. Now, she waits for him to decide to come again.

She does the things parents are told to do – shows she wants to give him the best start in life.

You had passed the due date string of eights,and were pulled out with forceps, blue, floury,on the fourteenth of August on Sunday afternoon.I took you home on Monday and lay you in your basket.

• Rhyme of ‘date’ with ‘eight’ – emphasises auspicious due date missed. ‘Due date’ repeated later in poem referring to when he will return from travels

• Irony – had to be pulled out with forceps / unwilling to leave; now unwilling to return home from travels

• Sunday Monday – idea of new week symbolising a new chapter beginning.

• Also conveyed through the use of a circular structure – the empty basket at the start of the section is now full symbolising she now feels whole/complete, and thus, with him now away, she feels empty once again.

IINow, I peek in your room and stare at your bedhardly able to imagine you back in there sleeping,Your handsome face – soft, open. Now you are eighteen,six foot two, away, away in Costa Rica, Peru, Bolivia.

Highlights this is a new chapter in their relationship and in both their lives too.

• Word choice – ‘peek’ – actions of a parent checking on a sleeping child. ‘stare’ – intensity of longing. Echoes earlier reference looking at empty basket

• ‘hardly able’ - links back to stanza 1. However, then she couldn’t imagine his presence. Now she can’t imagine anything but his absence. Repetition of ‘away’ emphasises the distance too.

• List of South American countries – exotic, distant, connotations of exploration/adventure. Also suggests distance between them.

• Affectionate descriptions of face as ‘soft, open’ will be contrasted by appearance on webcam later.

I follow your trails on my Times Atlas:from the Caribbean side of Costa Rica to the Pacific,the baby turtles to the massive leatherbacks.Then on to Lima, to Cuzco. Your grandfather

• Role reversal – mother following child’s lead.

• ‘Times Atlas’ – British institution, roots her in the UK. Contrast in the smallness of her actions (armchair travelling) compared with his adventure.

• Repeated structure of “from…to” Traversing from one side of South America to the other.

• Contrast between ‘baby turtles’ and ‘massive leatherbacks’

All serve to emphasise range and scale of Matthew’s travels and how he is no longer her little baby but is fully grown and she has to let him go (‘baby turtles massive leatherbacks’ – he’s ‘six foot two.’)

rings: ‘Have you considered altitude sickness,Christ, he’s sixteen thousand feet above sea level.’Then to the lost city of the Incas, Macchu Picchu,Where you take a photograph of yourself with the statue

Intrusion of Grandather’s warning is humorous – this Enjambment across stanzas reflects interruptions to Kay’s romanticised imagining of Matthews travels. Shows how fixated/concerned they are about Matthew. ‘Christ’ shows her frustration of the Grandfather’s irrationality.

‘lost city of the Incas, Macchu Picchu’ – connotations of discovering new worlds, like a conquistador.

Contrast – he is out experiencing life/new place/experiences – she is stuck at home/static/passive/experiencing life vicariously through him and not out experiencing it first hand.

• ‘Peruvian hat’ a symbol of changing/ experiencing new things confirmed by him being constantly on the move: (‘Yesterday in Puno… catching the bus for Copacabana.’)

• Word choice – ‘suddenly’ – fleeting communication again links to title – the gap between them.

• Likewise, the haircut is a marker of change/the new/unfamiliar to Kay.

• ‘grainy, blurry’ face contrasts with her imagining of his face in l.19. now, almost emphasises how long it has been since she saw him – his features are no longer as clearly defined.

of the original Tupac. You are wearing a Peruvian hat.Yesterday in Puno before catching the bus for Copacabanayou suddenly appear on a webcam and blow me a kiss,you have a new haircut; your face is grainy, blurry.

Comparison between present and past / webcam and prenatal scan and how much changes. Sadness for what has gone/passed. She is thinking about who this Matthew is, just like she wondered about who he would be pre-birth.

‘started….Arctic […] end up in subtropical’ – emphasises range/diversity of his travels ‘plan the Amazon’ – ambitious, broad, sweeping plans – continues image of Matthew as explorer/conquistador

Seeing you, shy, smiling, on the webcam reminds meof the second scan at twenty weeks, how at that fuzzymoment back then, you were lying cross-legged withan index finger resting sophisticatedly on one cheek.

You started the Inca trail in Arctic conditionsand ended up in subtropical. Now you plan the Amazonin Bolivia. Your grandfather rings again to say‘There’s three warring factions in Bolivia, warn him

Grandfather represents the voice of age: limitation, fear, worry, caution. Contrasts with Matthew’s carefree, free-wheeling plans to see the biggest and best (‘largest salt-flats’ ‘Amazonian rainforest’)

against it. He canny see everything. Tell him to come home.’But you say all the travellers you meet rave about Bolivia. You wantTo see the Salar de Uyuni,the world’s largest salt-flats, the Amazonian rainforest.

And now you’re not coming home till four weeks afteryour due date. After Bolivia, you plan to staywith a friend’s Auntie in Argentina.Then – to Chile where you’ll stay with friends of Diane’s.

Mirrors being four-weeks overdue at birth.

‘a friend’s Auntie’ and ‘friends of Diane’s’ –plans are ad-hoc. Kay struggling to keep up with who and where. Likewise, she is struggling to come to terms with how much he has changed/developed/his independence/failure to need her now etc.

And maybe work for the Victor Jara Foundation.I feel like a home-alone mother; all the lights have gone out in the hall, and now I amwearing your large black slippers, flip-flopping

• ‘maybe’ – plans are fluid, uncertain. She no longer is the one leading his choices; he is in charge of his own destiny separate from her.

• Pun on ‘home-alone’ – usually applied to a child. Role reversal – feels abandoned?

• Darkness symbolic of Matthew’s absence (‘lights have gone out’ and ‘black’) ‘Large’ suggests his life is too big now for her to step in to.

• Kay wearing Matthew’s slippers – to connect with him/feel close to him.

• Onomatopoeia – ‘flip-flopping’: a pathetic, sad sound, lacking energy. Idea of going back and forth to his room? Lack of direction without him whereas he is constantly on a journey without her.

into your empty bedroom, trying to imagine youin your bed. I stare at the photos you send by messenger:you on the top of the world, arms outstretched, eager.Blue sky, white snow; you by Lake Tarahua, beaming.

• ‘empty bedroom’ recalls empty cot at start. Sense of empty nest syndrome symbolising her loneliness/lack of completion/emptiness without him.

• ‘trying to imagine you / in your bed’ recalls ‘willing you to arrive’ at start of poem. Again reflects circular structure of the poem.

• ‘stare’ – sense of longing again – trying to absorb every second of his adventure/journey.

• Metaphor – ‘you on top of the world’ – delights to see him so happy.

• Blue and white of sky and snow recalls the blue of Matthew when born, and while of the fleecy blankets. Everything is about making connections – what she is desperate to try and do despite the miles between them. She tries to re-establish ties all the way through the poem (e.g. wearing his slippers to feel him close to her.)

• ‘beaming’ – reinforces symbolism of light. Matthew as light of her life. His absence brings darkness to the house. His happiness brings light to his face.

My heart soars like the birds in your bright blue skies.My love glows like the sunrise over the lost city.I sing along to Ella Fitzgerald, A tisket A tasket.I have a son out in the big wide world. A flip and a skip ago, you were dreaming in your basket.

• Marked change in mood here from sadness/nostalgia pride, joy and acceptance. Cf. with other poems which lead to acceptance at end e.g. ‘Lucozade’, ‘My Grandmother’s Houses’ and ‘Keeping Orchids.’

• Simile – ‘heart soars like the birds’ – image of joy and pride.

• Simile – ‘love glows like the sunrise over a lost city’ – her love is so powerful that it can reach him over the lost city of the Incas etc. regardless of distance between them.

• Kay is imagining herself with Matthew in the form of her love. Her love crosses all distance etc. Makes her feel more content as they will always be connected – link to last line. She created him; he was part of her; he will always be part of her.

• Contrast in last line to him as a baby symbolises how much they have achieved: he was dreaming of what he would do/achieve – he is now doing that. Everything she put into bringing him up (e.g. playing classical music etc. helped create a child who did dream but more so, who followed his dreams: gap year.

Summary

There are many resonances, parallels and contrasts throughout the poem.

The first section details the peace and tranquillity of the perfect union of mother and baby. It is much shorter than the second section, suggesting that the experience felt brief/short.

The second stanza starts with a flash forward of 18 years. The way this long period is dispatched by a simple section break, perhaps imitates the idea that, to Kay, Matthew’s birth just seemed like yesterday, and the intervening years have flashed past almost instantly.

The second stanza is far longer in length than the first, suggesting that the experience of tracking Matthew’s travels and awaiting his return is a painfully long and drawn-out one.

As with most of the poems in the selection, there is a wider range of tones present in the poem than might appear at first glance. Longing, pride, sadness, humour and nostalgia are all present in varying degrees.

Regular stanza lengths (4 lines) mirrors the regularity/inevitability of growing up/life children move away/have own lives.

Last line – short/brief symbolises how quickly this change occurs and the sadness/poignancy of her life with him, in some ways, now be over.