On The Train
by Gillian Clarke
The poem was written by
Clarke as a response to the
Paddington rail crash.
On the Train
Cradled through England between flooded fields
rocking, rocking the rails, my headphones on,
the black box of my Walkman on the table.
Hot tea trembles in its plastic cup.
I’m thinking of you waking in our bed
The poet is on a train
and she thinks of her
husband waking up
imagining her on a
train.
thinking of me on the train.
She listens to the radio and
imagines people going to
work/school on the train; all
seems normal until the words
“blazing bone-ship”. What
might this mean?
The radio speaks in the suburbs, in commuter towns,
in cars unloading children at school gates,
is silenced in dark parkways down the line
before locks click and footprints track the frost
and trains slide out of stations in the dawn
dreaming their way towards the blazing bone–ship.
The Vodaphone you are calling
may have been switched off.
Please call later. And calling later,
calling later their phones ring in the rubble
and in the rubble of suburban kitchens
the wolves howl into silent telephones.
The poet wants to call home
to let them know she’s safe
and to feel safe herself.
Today she isn’t annoyed by
mobile phones.
I phone. No answer. Where are you now?
The train moves homewards through the morning.
Tonight I’ll be home safe, but talk to me, please.
Pick up the phone. Today I’m tolerant
of mobiles. Let them say it. I’ll say it too.
Darling, I’m on the train
She uses everyday
language to stress the
unanswered phones
of the dead.
Opening gives a feeling of
safety. Why does ‘cradled’
have this effect?
Alliteration
mirrors the
motion of the
train and
reinforces the
comforting,
cradling feel of
the train
The train is presented as carrying her
safely between the ‘flooded fields’
and when this image of safety is
disrupted it is all the more powerful.
Cradled through England between flooded fields
rocking, rocking the rails, my headphones on,
the black box of my Walkman on the table.
Hot tea trembles in its plastic cup.
I’m thinking of you waking in our bed
thinking of me on the train.
Literal description of the walkman but
figuratively it evokes the image of a flight
recorder used to study plane disasters
The you referred to here is Clarke’s husband but this is
never specified allowing us to read it as an address to
everyone who can share in this experience
The central image of the poem comes at the end of this
stanza but is in direct contrast to the rest of the stanza
The radio is personified as speaking to the suburbs,
spreading the bad news. The image recalls Clarke sitting
on the train hearing news of the Paddington train crash
“dreaming
their way to”
work is what
we expect
following the
normal
descriptions
that precede
the final line
The radio speaks in the suburbs, in commuter towns,
in cars unloading children at school gates,
is silenced in dark parkways down the line
before locks click and footprints track the frost
and trains slide out of stations in the dawn
dreaming their way towards the blazing bone–ship.
Clarke lists
the everyday
activities: kids
off to school;
people
catching the
train to work
What is the blazing
bone-ship literally?
The coach following the crash was on fire
with an unknown number of dead in it.
Clarke says, “I was thinking of the burning funeral ships the Celts used to push out
to sea, containing the bodies of their heroes. I wanted to suggest something noble,
tragic, heroic, because real people would be grieving, and deserved no less than
the dignity of the noblest image I could conjure.”
The poet makes a call but the
(mobile) phone she is ringing is
turned off. She is advised to call
later.
The image of
rubble is repeated
metaphorically as
the rubble of pain
left in ‘suburban
kitchens’ the
traditional heart of
the home. It
evokes feelings of
the broken hearts
left behind by the
crash.
The poet uses iambic metre
throughout the poem except for
this point. What effect does the
break in the metre have?
The Vodaphone you are calling
may have been switched off.
Please call later. And calling later,
calling later their phones ring in the rubble
and in the rubble of suburban kitchens
the wolves howl into silent telephones.
The poet imagines the
phones of other
people unable to
answer them as they
lie dead in the literal
rubble of the crash.
“wolves” howling could be the sounds of the sirens at the crash
site.
The image also links to danger and could suggest the
screeching of metal as the train crashed.
Short sentences give a sense of
the ‘punctuated’ waiting as the
phone rings. The question is for
her husband but equally could
apply to the questions of
anxious callers trying to reach
people who were on the train
The poet wants
to be comforted
in the same way
that people
want their loved
ones to answer
and comfort
them. The plea
is the same for
both of them.
This idea links to the earlier
description of people going about their
normal day. It contrasts with the trains
making their way towards the “blazing
bone-ship”
I phone. No answer. Where are you now?
The train moves homewards through the morning.
Tonight I’ll be home safe, but talk to me, please.
Pick up the phone. Today I’m tolerant
of mobiles. Let them say it. I’ll say it too.
Darling, I’m on the train
She admits that today she will be tolerant of the
normally annoying mobile phones and she stresses the
importance, on this day, of the cliché “I’m on the train”
Clarke says, “At the time of the train crash the mobile
phone’s favourite cliché, ‘I’m on the train’, was suddenly
the most important message in the world.”
Review
1. What is this poem about? Love, anxiety,
disaster?
2. In what sense can this poem apply to all
disasters?
3. How does Clarke use everyday objects and
images to make the message more powerful?
4. What do we learn about the speaker in this
poem?
5. Pick out the key images used in this poem and
explain their effect on the reader.
Comparisons
• Mid-term Break:
• Both poems deal with loss
• One is incredibly personal whereas the other is a
response to wider world events
• We see family as a comfort in both although in Heaney’s
the comfort is missing
• On My First Sonne – This poem concerns the loss of a
child and has been written to make sense of what has
happened;
• it’s more positive than ‘Mid-Term Break.
• Although less specific, On the Train is Clarke’s attempt to
make sense of the events she hears on the radio
Are there any other comparisons to be made? Think of themes, language and content