Visiting Hour
by
Norman MacCaig
Poem Summary
• The poem is about a visit MacCaig makes
to an ill relative in hospital.
• The opening stanzas (1-4) describe the
poet’s journey through the hospital.
• He then reaches ‘Ward 7’ where he finds
the frail woman he has come to see.
• The poem allows us an insight into the
narrator’s feelings and we also gain an
understanding of how ill the patient is.
Stanza One
(synaesthesia)
The hospital smell
Combs my nostrils
As they go bobbing along
Green and yellow corridors
(synecdoche)
• How does the poet
create a clear sense
of setting in the
first stanza?
• Why has he chosen
to describe the
smell?
• What is the effect
of the colour choice
MacCaig has used
for the corridors?
Synaesthesia
Confusion of the senses.
When one sense
experiences something it
elicits a response in
another sense.
For example - when
someone hears certain
sounds they might see
colour.
Synecdoche
Using a part to refer to
the
whole.
For example – he got
himself some new wheels
We know this means a car
But it only refers to the
wheels so it is
SYNECDOCHE
Stanza Two
What seems a corpse
Is trundled into a lift and vanishes
Heavenwards
Enjambment
• What mood is
created in this
stanza?
• Explain and pick out
words that you
think convey this
mood.
• Discuss the effect
of the enjambment.
Free Verse
The poem does not have a set rhyme
scheme or verse structure.
• Why do you think MacCaig decided to
adopt free verse in this poem?
It is also written in first person.
• Why is this an effective stance?
Stanza Three
I will not feel, I will not
Feel, until
I have to.
After the previous stanzas
which describe the setting,
this verse allows us to
understand the speaker’s
feelings.
• Looking at the structure
of this verse, comment on
how tension is created.
• What is the effect of the
final line?
Stanza Four
In
this
stanza
the
(Structure)
poet creates a
Nurses walk lightly, swiftly
feeling of activity
here and up and down and there and purpose.
their slender waists miraculously
carrying their burden,
of so much pain, so
• What does he feel
about the nurses?
many deaths, their eyes
• In what way do they
still clear after
provide a contrast?
so many farewells
(repetition)
Journey
These first four verses
move through the
corridors of the hospital
as the speaker heads
towards his destination.
• How has this sense of
movement been
achieved?
Ward 7.
Caesura – a pause in a
line of poetry.
•What is the effect of
the (complete) first
line of this stanza?
This is a turning point
in the poem.
• Explain.
Stanza Five
‘White cave of forgetfulness’
‘A withered hand/trembles on its stalk’
‘glass fang’
‘distance shrinks’
‘the distance of pain which neither she nor I/can cross.’
Stanza Six
• What do you notice about
the viewpoint?
The poet is described as the
‘black figure’.
• What is significant about
this?
• Explain why you think he
‘clumsily rises’?
Oxymoron – a phrase containing contradictory terms
‘almost finished’, ‘dress trousers’, ‘pretty ugly’
• Comment on the importance of the
oxymoron in the final line of the
poem.
• How has the speaker’s stance
changed from the start of the
poem?
• What feeling is the reader left
with at the end of the poem?