“The Almond Tree”
By Jon Stallworthy
“All the way to the hospital the
lights were green as
peppermints”
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Imagery – simile – excitement- children become excited by sweets –
suggests that at this stage he has childish views on life.
Childish in its cheerfulness and its innocence sets not only an intended
mood but the basis for a dramatic contrast to come.
‘All’ – hyperbolic statement – optimism & naivety.
Introduces the physical journey which takes place
Introduces the first section of the poem – his journey to the hospital and his
anticipation of the birth of his child.
Do you think this is a natural response?
“As if I were the lucky prince in an
enchanted wood”
• Sense of pride and good
fortune
• Fairytale imagery
reinforces his childish
perception of the world
• Foreshadowing – woods
are stereotypically
associated with danger in
fairytales
• He is unaware of the reality
that lies ahead
“Swung by the road from bend to
bend”
• Personification – illustrates his lack
of control – external forces are
leading him to his destination.
• This contrasts with his previous futile
belief that he could control nature
(summon summer…banish winter)
• Foreshadowing – the reader is
increasingly aware that his optimism
and naivety may be thwarted
• Introduces one of the main themes –
fate.
• The physical journey continues but is
becoming increasingly challenging
“blood was running
down through the delta of my wrist
and under arches
of bright bone.”
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Introduces another key theme – the power of nature and its connection
with all things.
Personification mirrors the sense of urgency in his movements and
illustrates his excitement
Alliteration – mirrors the sound of his heartbeat
Colour contrast – connotations of danger, or injury, with peace
Reference to the physical form reminds us that this is not a fairytale
Gruesome imagery reminds us of the man’s mortality and the frailty
thereof.
“Centuries,
continents it had crossed;
from an undisclosed beginning
spiralling to an unmapped end.”
•Journey – suggestion of time and distance travelled
•“Spiralling” and “unmapped” – reinforces his lack of control over his
own destiny. It is inherently dark and frightening.
•“undisclosed” – reinforces the uncertainty of this situation and of life
•“Centuries” and “continents” illustrate the enormity of the journey
that he is embarking on
•Introduces his literal and metaphorical journey
•The tone at the end of this stanza is one of uncertainty and doubt.
This marks the end of the first subdivision.
Crossing (at sixty) Magdalen
Bridge
• Parenthesis – explicit reference to his sense of urgency
• Reference to Magdalen Bridge (in Oxford) puts the poem
into context
• Oxford is renowned for the abundance of almond trees
Let it be a son, a son, said
the man in the driving mirror,
Let it be a son.
• Tone-– re-establishes the
optimistic, cheerful tone.
• Repetition – embodies his
hope and eagerness for a son.
In his naivety his only concern
is the gender of his unborn
child rather than for its health.
• ‘the man’ indicates that as he
reflects on the experience he
no longer recognises his
former self .
The tower
held up its hand: the college
bells shook their blessings on his
head.
• Personification – in his optimism he
interprets this gesture as a welcome
• Bells – ambiguous – symbol of peace
and good fortune.
• “his head” – connotations of a
christening.
• A sense of foreboding is created as
the clock chimes.
‘I parked in an almond's
shadow blossom, for the tree
was waving, waving at me
upstairs with a child's hands.’
“shadow blossom – oxymoron – illustrates his optimism with the
reality. “shadow” – dark and sinister connotations whist “blossom”
has bright connotation development and nurture. There are two
aspects to nature.
The almond tree - symbolism
• Stallworthy introduces
the motif of the
almond tree whose
significance cannot
be appreciated at this
point.
• This excerpt, like that
of the peppermintgreen street lights,
implies situational
innocence.
• This stanza concludes
the first of the three major
divisions of the poem –
preceding the birth of the
child.
• Stallworthy uses these
stanzas and their childish
imagery to render a mood
which the following lines
will completely destroy.
“Up
the spinal stair”
• “Up” – contrast in the optimistic tone
created in the initial lines of the poem as it
suggests that his journey will become
more challenging
• “Spinal” – further reference to the physical
form and the associated frailty
• Repeated references to the physical form
create an ambiguous fear in the reader
and a cold tone which seems to be
leading to an event less endurable.
• The metaphors of the body also indicate
that the persona is once again going to
face his mortality – his basic nature.
“blood tide swung
me swung me”
• Reference to nature – the
power of nature is illustrated in
the fact that once again he
does not have the ability to
control it.
• Repetition – mirrors the
indiscriminate movement and
emotions
• Imagery – “blood tide” –
connotations of a mass area of
blood which further reinforces
the gruesome nature of the
delivery room.
• Which is the most powerful
element of nature?
“whose walls shuddered with the
shuddering womb”
• Repetition of “shuddering” is
ambiguous. It could refer to his
wife’s contractions. This literal
reference is continued with the
reference to the “womb”.
• The word choice is effective as it
has sinister connotations and
therefore could indicate his own
response to the news of his
child’s disorder.
• The word evokes feelings of pain
and distress; it is a word of
helplessness, fear and
withdrawal.
Rhythm
• Throughout the fifth stanza, to this point,
the rhythm has been fast, irregular, with
very short lines, sometimes containing
only one word.
• This suggests both the racing mind and
the very quick heartbeat, both natural
correlates of awaiting one’s child birth.
• However, they are also frightening and
seem to foreshadow something awful.
“Newminted, my bright farthing!
Coined by our love, stamped
With our images, how you
Enrich us!”
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Tone – changes to one of elation.
The imagery created by the extended metaphor
implies that he feels that his life has been
enhanced.
The new coin just formed at the mint, suggests
absolute perfection and purity.
For the first time, a sense of unity has been
suggested.
The new father is ecstatic – he is finally secure,
finally confident in the success of the birth.
“best poem” – enriched expression of a man who
truly believes that a father’s child is his greatest
accomplishment.
The language in this section is far more poetic and
cathartic in its descriptiveness.
Rhythm
• The rhythm in these lines is much
smoother and easier to read as if the
man’s heart is finally at ease.
“At seven-thirty
the visitors' bell
scissored the calm
of the corridors.”
• Tone – reverts to one of panic.
• “Scissored” – negative connotations of
an instrument of pain.
• Symbolism – bells had previously been
a sign of good fortune – this time the
bells interrupt the scene of tranquility.
• The precision of the time suggests that
he is reliving this experience.
“The doctor walked with me / to
the slicing doors”
• Word choice – reinforces an instrument of
pain.
• This enforces the suspense which has
already been created.
• The rhythm is still slow and evokes a
sense of sympathy on behalf of the doctor.
“His hand is upon my arm,/ his
voice – I have to tell / you - set
another bell / beating in my head”
• Now the doctor, in his attempts to sustain the
man’s composure, places an apologetic hand
upon him and is obviously bracing him for some
inconceivable information.
• Notice the change from past tense to present
tense – this recreates the situation for the reader
further establishing our engagement with the
persona and his experience.
• Symbolism – bell – symbol of noise rather than
music.
• The chaos and panic of the man are paramount
now, and Stallworthy has built his highest
suspense.
“your son is a mongol /the doctor
said”
• What is your response to this statement?
• “mongol” – word choice evokes shock
from the reader.
• Consider the doctor’s actions prior to this.
Do you think this is really what he would
have said? Why do you think the persona
heard these words?
Dealing with the news
• As the sixth group begins, the narrator begins the final
phase of the poem – that of dealing with the news of his
child’s handicap.
• The stanzaic form for the poem’s remainder is
consistently quatrains of a noticeable rhyme scheme and
therefore rhythm has returned from what had been a
scattered progression.
• The rhythm gives the impression that this man, stunned
at hearing the doctor’s words, is pacing, evenly and in
rhythm, and attempting for the last subdivision of the
poem to assimilate everything that has happened.
“How easily the word went in - / clean
as a bullet / leaving no mark on the
skin,/ stopping the heart within it”
• This simile evokes sympathy from the reader.
• “leaving no mark on the skin” suggests that this
is an internal pain. He is completely isolated in
his injury which cannot be treated and cannot be
appreciated by any other person.
“stopping the heart within it”
• The pain strikes the persona
so suddenly and so intensely,
that it stops his heart instantly
and any superficial response
is irrelevant.
• The bullet symbolises instant
death, and as the persona
will express, this is precisely
what he feels at this moment.
“This was my first death”
• He affirms that all for which he has lived to this point has
been destroyed.
• Death is a concept encompassing many elements,
including the narrator’s likely feelings of loneliness,
numbness, terror and hopelessness.
• The idea of this being his “first” suggests two things: that
this is the first time he will die, the last being the end of
his life, and also that since he has never encountered
such a devastating situation, this is the first time he has
ever known pain and sadness to this extent.
“studied the man below / as a pilot
treading air”
• So distraught is the persona that his
spirit ascends from his body and he is
able to look down upon his flesh.
• He compares himself to a jet pilot who
has ejected and is “treading air” –
symbolic of the split-second’s ability to
change power, vitality, and
momentum into stagnation and
vulnerability.
• This pilot, like the narrator, feels no
pain.
• This may be from shock or from the
physical abuse of the incident, but in
either case, the metaphor is perfect.
“snapped wires’ radiant ends.”
• The extended metaphor climaxes in effectiveness and poetic
excellence.
• These wires, the reason for the pilot’s malfunction, could represent a
number of things.
• First, where technology is concerned, something such as wires’
failing in their purpose is so random and unpredictable, that no one
can explain it.
• It is chaotic, a matter of microscopic imprecision, and this fraction of
an inch may mean loss, perhaps of human life.
• This metaphor brilliantly includes the cruel selectiveness of fate, the
unexplainable fraction of an inch which led to this infant’s life being
intellectually limited for the duration of his life.
• Secondly, the metaphor if wires relates to the child’s brain. So
complex is the brain, that a person cannot possibly understand all of
its functions and properties. This is well exemplified by a board of
circuits, tangled and distinguishable to the extreme that, should one
wire fail, to remedy the problem would be impossible, its effects on
the system undeniable.
“buckled shell of his plane – boot,
glove and helmet feeling no pain”
• The persona lists items that
were supposed to protect
him from harm but are
rendered useless due to the
severity of the situation.
“Unfamiliar / the body of my
late self / I carried to the
car”
• This phrase’s imagery presents the man slouching,
barely capable of movement in his sadness. It is the
image of a broken man, who must summon all his
energy to continue with his now-empty life.
• The final line of the sixth section also declares that the
man’s body, already conceded to death, is unfamiliar to
him.
• The euphemism is effective in evoking sympathy from
the reader.
• He is frightened and confused, and from this point
forward, he will be living as though within a dead, hollow
shell.
“The hospital – its heavy freight /
lashed down ship-shape ward over
ward”
• The final sub-section of
Stallworthy’s “The Almond Tree”
finds the persona reaching his
climactic assertion of how he is to
handle what has happened.
• It begins with the metaphor of a
ship, the hospital, whose freight is
the many patients within.
• Reminds the reader of his literal and
metaphorical journey.
• “ship-shape” – connotations of the
monotonous routines within the
wards of the hospital.
“steamed into night with some on
board / soon to be lost if the
desperate / charts were known”
• The “desperate charts” to which the
persona refers are those of the stars – fate
– which no one wholly understands nor
can they control.
• The ship will lose some of its freight for no
reason other than the cruelty of
circumstance, the angry father affirms to
himself.
“Others would come / altered to
land or find the land / altered.”
This observation seems to suggest that those who
survived may find more difficulty than those who
did not.
The persona is referring to his son and the terrible
fate with which he has been cursed: his
perspective of the world which he has been part
of has been altered.
The extended metaphor reminds us of his
metaphorical journey from innocence and youth
to one whose experience has provided him with
the harsh reality of life.
“In a numbered cot / my son sailed from me; never
to come / ashore to my kingdom / speaking my
language”
• The extended metaphor is continued.
• The father concedes his loss; loss of hopes and dreams of the
relationship which he had envisaged for he and his son, the birth of
whom, he so eagerly anticipated.
• He and his son will never be united in the way he had intended.
• Rather, this child’s course will run to another “kingdom”, another
world, where the narrator does not understand.
• The reference to his “kingdom” is reminiscent of the idealistic
fairytale that was created in the opening stanza of the poem.
Therefore, the contrast between hopes and the reality is highlighted
which compels us to sympathise with his anguish.
• This child will never speak the language of poetry and this may also
be a source of deep pain.
“Better not look that way.”
• This marks the turning point in the poem.
• He has had the highest hopes for his child,
entertained the brightest predictions for his
life, and now these hopes have been
stifled.
• He has now conceded the circumstances,
and has decided to move forward with his
life, rather than to dwell in his present
misery.
“The almond tree / was beautiful in
labour. Blood-/dark, quickening,
bud after bud / split, flower after
flower shook free.”
• The significance of
the almond tree now
becomes clear.
• Stallworthy’s most
skilful deployment of
symbolism is evident
through the imagery
of the tree.
Stallworthy’s writing is at its most complex in the
following stanzas, as the speaker shifts
frequently between himself and the almond tree.
Through this symbolism he suggests a scene of
childbirth.
The reader appreciates the imagery of a mother
giving birth, but by doing so, Stallworthy
establishes a connection between the tree and
the narrator.
The tree, beautiful in labour, is something from
which the man is learning the message of the
poem.
• Why do people often offer gifts of flowers?
• Consider how a flower develops. Ironically, the
bud of a flower – which is what we deem to be
its most beautiful aspect – is a sign of its
maturity which very quickly leads to its death.
• Similarly, one can appreciate that the persona
feels that, despite the fact that the splitting of
each bud led to the death of his former self, this
has actually enhanced his former self.
“On the darkening wind a pale /
face floated. Out of reach.”
• This pale face is that of his son. On this ship, he
is floating out to sea, out of reach of he who had
loved him most.
• The connotations of his son’s pale face that
floated are that of ghostliness.
“Only when / the buds, all the buds,
were broken / would the tree be in
full sail.”
• Immediately, the focus shifts back to the tree.
• The combination of ship and tree metaphors
compound the complexity of the concept that losing
is actually gaining.
• The tree is becoming more beautiful, more fulfilled,
as it shakes free its flowers.
• Similarly, the persona, as he has lost something
critical in his life, is becoming more complete, and
in some way more beautiful, as well.
• The more painful the experience of the man, the
more he will grow in wisdom and strength. Losing
his son is a terrible experience but the persona
admirably chooses to use this experience to grow
in these ways.
Trivia
• Perhaps Stallworthy is alluding to the
Nietzschean view that what does not kill
one, makes one stronger.
• Kanye West did not conceive this
philosophy. Fact!
“In labour the tree was becoming /
itself”
• The tree is affirmed as a tree through its
hardships and ultimately losing its flowers.
• The man is also becoming more of a man
through the pain of his son’s disability.
“I too, rooted in earth / and ringed
by darkness, from the death / of
myself saw myself blossoming”
• He as become a greater person because
of his experience. His spiritual death has
catalysed a spiritual rebirth.
• “rooted” suggests that he is now feels a
sense of permanence in this world –
perhaps due to his responsibilities – rather
than in a magical land in a fairytale.
• “ringed by darkness” effectively illustrates
the wisdom which he now beholds. As
trees mature the rings within the trunk
reflect their age and associated wisdom.
“wrenched from the caul of my
thirty/ years’ growing, fathered by
my son,/ unkindly in a kind season/
by love shattered and set free.”
• He has accepted his fate, and that of his son, and he feels free in an
ironic way.
• “fathered by my son” means that it his child who has given him
wisdom – who has taught him. He has escaped from his life of
conventional “growing” and has now truly grown as a person.
• The irony in this final stanza implies the contrast between his
enlightenment and the blindness with which he has travelled through
life thus far.
• The persona, broken and symbolically destroyed by his son’s
condition, has been resurrected by faith in the natural cycle and an
appreciation for spiritual growth.
• Through all of his emotional changes the narrator has concluded his
reflection with an enlightened perspective and moral.
The Almond Tree?
• Throughout the poem, the almond tree appears
frequently, though not directly within the plot.
• Early in the work, the man parks beneath its
shadowy branches, and the tree is protecting
him in this way.
• Later, upon his ascension from his physical
being, it is the tree which calls him back to earth,
back to life.
• Finally, as the poem concludes, the almond tree
teaches the man what he needs to learn
regarding his perspective of life and how to
manage his emotions.
Symbolism
• While the tree plays no pure role
throughout the poem it is a constant
symbol on many levels.
• First, a tree cannot act, cannot voice
opinion or defend itself. Therefore, a tree
is at the mercy of its environment or, from
its fate. In this way, it symbolises the role
of fate in the man’s life, and his
helplessness in changing it.
• The almond tree also symbolises nature and its
processes. When it calls the man to earth, it is
signalling that nature is beautiful, and even
when its random tragedies occur, one must
accept it as one aspect of an infinitely large and
superior cycle.
• Finally, the tree symbolises strength and
perseverance, as it inspires the narrator to
re-evaluate his situation and to make the
decision to continue on, rather to
surrender to his sadness.
• The almond tree, though passive, delivers
some of the most powerful messages
throughout the poem.
Summary
• “The Almond Tree”, by Jon Stallworthy, is an outstanding
composition.
• His use of symbolism, irony, rhythm, and diction is
excellent in expressing a range of emotions.
Furthermore, he conveys strong messages through
these techniques, all of which the reader absorbs into his
or her own life, as these are messages which affect all
people.
• The tree’s presence throughout the work is exceptionally
special as it represents so many ideas.
• Overall, Stallworthy’s poem is outstanding , and it is
successful in conveying every complex human emotion
and understanding to its reader.