The relationships between parents and children and portrayed in many different lights in the poems I have studied; they are represented both positively and negatively.
The poem ‘Long Distance’ and ‘My Grandmother’ are poems that explore the feelings and emotions of the main characters as a consequence of someone they knew dying. The poet Tony Harrison which wrote ‘Long Distance’ presents the relationship between the parent and child negative. There is clearly a sense of unease between the two because his father cannot move on after his wife’s death which is demonstrated in the line ‘kept her slippers warming by the gas’. This shows that after two years he is unable to move on from the death and still thinks she is still there with them.
Similarly, in the poem ‘Grandmother’ the relationship between the grandparent and grandchild is a strained one. In the poem it quotes ‘I remember how I once refused’. Through using the word ‘refused’, the poet implies that she didn’t want to spend time with her grandmother. This line also emphasises the lack of love. It is evident that in "My Grandmother" there are themes of guilt and remorse. In the poem the granddaughter is attempting to come to terms with her guilt as she "could still feel the guilt of that refusal." The guilt she feels she could never go back to and change.
However, in the poem ‘Follower ‘the child and parent are a lot closer to one another, ‘sometimes he rode me on his back’. This suggests they have spent many hours together. Also the child admires his father, in the line ‘All I ever did was follow’, this represents that he wants to be like his father and learn from him. he also looks up to him in a metaphorical sense. This is made clear by the poet’s careful choice of words. An example of this is in the lines, ‘His eye narrowed and angled at the ground, mapping the furrows exactly.’ This word effectively suggest his father’s skill and precision. Despite this, the child can’t escape his dad shadow and...