Studied poetry: sample answer
(a) The poem I have studied is Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney. The central issue in
the poem is the death of a child and the effect it can have on a family.
The poem tells the story of a boy coming home to his four year old brother’s funeral.
The theme of death hangs over the whole poem and seems to turn normality on its head.
In the first stanza we see the older brother waiting to be collected from boarding school.
Instead of ringing the school bell knells, like a death toll. Instead of his parents collecting
him, the boy’s neighbours collect him and bring him home.
When he arrives home he begins to see the effect his brother’s death has had on his
normal home life. He meets his father crying in the porch. This is strange to the boy
who thought his father had ‘always taken funerals in his stride.’ He begins to realise that
this funeral is different when grown men stand up to shake his hand. There is a tense and
awkward atmosphere in the house which is full of neighbours and mourners struggling to
find the right thing to say ‘Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow’.
The poet describes the mother who tries to comfort the speaker by holding his hand
despite her aching loss. She struggles to be able to some to terms with the tragedy ‘and
coughs out angry, tearless sighs.’
The poet creates a calm and soothing atmosphere in the child’s bedroom which reflects
the tranquillity and peacefulness of death ‘Snowdrops and candles soothed the bedside’.
The poet reflects the purity and innocence of the dead child in the white colours of the
snowdrops and candles – the same colour as his coffin. The tragedy of his young death is
made even more vivid by the poet’s repetition of the phrase ‘a four foot box’. His little
white coffin measured just a foot for every year of his short life. We learn that he was hit
by a car ‘the bumper knocked him clear’. This highlights the fragility and transience of
life compared to the permanence of death.
(b) Studying this poem gave me an insight into how traumatic the death of a child can be
and how difficult it is for a family to cope with the loss. In the natural order of things
people die when they are old and before their children. This poem illustrated how the
natural order of things is disrupted when a child dies. This is most evident in the title
which initially suggests that the poem may be about the holidays. However the reality
and irony of the title eventually becomes clear as the reader realises that this is not an
ordinary mid-term break. The boy’s normal home life is disturbed by strangers and
neighbours who have come to pay their respects to him, a concept he has never before
encountered. His father, who never cries, is now seen out crying alone in the porch. An
ambulance, normally used to transport the sick to hospital, arrives at the house with the
dead boy ‘stanched and bandaged’.
By using a child speaker the poet brilliantly illustrates how difficult it is for a child to
comprehend death. The tone of the poem is somewhat cold and detached as though the
speaker is removed from the situation. This portrays the difficulty a child would have
M. Nagle, Colaiste Bride, 2010
understanding the loss of a younger sibling. ‘I saw him for the first time in six weeks,
paler now. He tries to make sense of the situation by describing the unusual things he
sees and comparing them to the familiar ‘He lay in a four foot box as his cot.’ He uses
repetition to try to absorb the tragic truth of his brother’s death ‘A four foot box. A foot
for every year.’
Overall I thought this was an excellent poem in portraying the tragedy of the death of a
child. It helped me to understand the effects it can have on a whole family and
community. I got an insight into how difficult it is for other children to make sense of
death, especially within their own family. Although it is a sad poem I thoroughly
enjoyed reading it.
Cinders (unseen poem 2010 sample answer)
1. From reading the poem I think that the poet has a very loving, caring and
protective relationship with his daughter. However there is also a sense that their
relationship is fleeting.
The poem describes the father leaving a pantomime with his young daughter. This
shows that the loving father is happy to give his time to doing things that the little
girl enjoys, even if it is on a cold, winter’s night. He shows his protective side
when he says ‘I clutch you tightly for fear you blow away.’ The child is obviously
very young but it seems the father is somewhat over protective of her. Maybe this
is because he is conscious that he looks old enough to be her grandfather ‘and
sensing this, I hold you tighter still.’
The father’s nervousness or lack of confidence is furthered when he describes
how he fumbled with the straps on the baby seat, suggesting that this is all new to
him. The father seems to be panicking about the fact that he hasn’t got enough
time with his precious daughter. It is not clear whether he is ill or has to leave but
he seems to yearn for more time with her and mourns the fact that he won’t be
there to see her ‘dressed for the Ball’ or ‘be on hand to warn you against Prince
Charmings.’
The father in the poem clearly loves and cares for his daughter a great deal but he
is also sad that their relationship will not last forever.
M. Nagle, Colaiste Bride, 2010