Visiting Hour
by
Norman MacCaig
The poem is about MacCaig’s experience as he goes to
the hospital to visit his wife.
The poem takes us through his journey through the
hospital, his thoughts and feelings until he get so his
wife’s ward.
Stanza 3
Repetition
I will not feel, I will not
Feel, until
I have to.
Poet chanting to
himself – trying to
control his emotions
(painful) Tension in the
poem builds here – he
knows he’ll have to
face emotions
sometime.
Stanza 4
Syntax
Word choice
Contrast
Conveys a busy
hospital
atmosphere –
nurses going
everywhere at
one and always
on the go.
Nurses walk lightly, swiftly,
Here and up and down and there,
Their slender waists miraculously
They cope
Carrying their burden
well with
death –
Of so much pain, so
admires them
Many deaths, their eyes
Still clear after so many farewells.
Highlights
difference
between poet and
the nurses
Stanza 5
Minor Sentence
Metaphor
Word Choice
Alliteration
He gets close to her (kiss
her?) but the pain is a
barrier between them –
feels hopeless
The bed/curtain, she’s not
really conscious
Ward 7. She lies
in a white cave of forgetfulness.
Weakness/thin/fragile
A withered hand
like a flower
trembles on its stalk. Eyes move
behind eyelids too heavy
to raise. Into an arm wasted
Vampire image
of colour a glass fang is fixed,
reversed. The needle
a fang – feels pity
not guzzling but giving.
And between her and me
distance shrinks till there is none left
but the distance of pain that neither she nor I
can cross.
Stanza 6
She knows he’s there
Contrast
Word Choice
Pun
She smiles a little at this
Black figure in her white cave
She has let go of
control, feels
Who clumsily rises
faint/moving
away
In the round swimming waves of a
bell
Paradox
And dizzily goes off, growing
fainter,
Highlights
her situation and
his distress. It seems a
Not smaller, leaving behind
only
pointless
situation – he
can’t do anything to help
Books that will not be read
And fruitless fruits.