My Grandmother by Elizabeth Jennings

My Grandmother by Elizabeth Jennings

In many of Elizabeth Jennings poems she reflects the difficult

personal experiences of her life. Many of her poems deal with themes

of family, friendship, suffering, loneliness and religious

experiences, without them being too sentimental. In this poem

Elizabeth Jennings has set it out in four stanzas. Where each stanza

tells a part to her story. Elizabeth Jennings is talking about her own

experiences with her grandmother. The poem is a memory of her

childhood and she is looking back at it.

People have lots of different opinions about what a Grandmother is

supposed to be like. Some people think that they should be caring to

others, loving to their families, always going to play bingo,

constantly knitting something for their grandchildren and never unkind

to others. Even thougfh all Grandmothers are not like that we class as

to be all the same and we always classify them as being old and frail.

Some Grandmothers are fit and healthy always doing something active.

We should not classify all Grandmothers to be old either because some

of them might be younger than you think.

On the other hand when we do say that all Grandmothers are kind and

caring some may not be. We should not judge them. In some houses the

family put up photographs of their Grandmothers to keep as a memory if

they live far away or are dead. Others might have photo albums of the

whole family. In this poem Elizabeth Jennings's Grandmother does not

care about her family and does not have any photographs of them up on

the wall to look at from time to time. Her Grandmother just spend all

of her time in her antique shop other than ...

... middle of paper ...

...ust or

finger marks where the dust would be collected over a day or two. It

was beginning to show because she was not there to clean it.

The language used in the poem was quite simple. The poem was set in

the mind of a child and the memory of Elizabeth Jennings's. There is a

rhyme pattern. In the first stanza we can see that in the first and

third line there is rhyme. In fifth and sixth line there is eye rhyme.

This is when you read it out - loud it does not sound as if it would

rhyme, but when you look at it, it looks similar because both 'prove'

and 'love' end with '. ove.' Half rhyme has been used in the second

stanza when it says ' guilt' and 'felt'. These two words sound nothing

like each other or look alike, but the last letter of either word is

the same, which makes them end on the same note when you say them.