My Brother
(Bruce Dawe)
The other day you were driving through town
on one of the new freeways,
doing a steady forty-five as usual,
minding your own business, miles away,
and the traffic kept cutting you down,
the young kids in the big unpaid-for cars,
and the older men going flat out to keep ahead
of their life insurance payments,
and I didn’t have the heart to tell you
that they didn’t drive at that speed any more
(well, not in the middle lanes, anyway)
and I wished to Hell I was back twenty years ago
when the roads were free and you were as fast
as the best of them.
Questions
1. What is the effect of the poet directly addressing his
brother? ______________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
2. The mood of the poem is of regret for the passing of time
and its effect on the poet’s brother. What words suggest this?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
3. What words and phrases suggest that the brother is out of
touch with the changes over time?
(a)____________________________________________________
(b)___________________________________________________
4. The poem is a metaphor for the passing of time. Explain this
as best you can. _______________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
5. What changes occur in this poem? ______________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
6. Outline how this is:
(a) changing worlds ____________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
(b) changing self _______________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
(c) changing perspective ________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
My Brother
(Bruce Dawe)
The other day you were driving through town
on one of the new freeways,
doing a steady forty-five as usual,
minding your own business, miles away,
and the traffic kept cutting you down,
the young kids in the big unpaid-for cars,
and the older men going flat out to keep ahead
of their life insurance payments,
and I didn’t have the heart to tell you
that they didn’t drive at that speed any more
(well, not in the middle lanes, anyway)
and I wished to Hell I was back twenty years ago
when the roads were free and you were as fast
as the best of them.
Questions
1. What is the effect of the poet directly addressing his
brother? The effect of the poet directly addressing his brother is
that it personalises it, and it highlights that he feels some empathy
for him. He doesn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him that he’s
too slow for the changed conditions over the last 20 years.
2. The mood of the poem is of regret for the passing of time
and its effect on the poet’s brother. What words suggest this?
“I wished to Hell I was back twenty years ago”.
3. What words and phrases suggest that the brother is out of
touch with the changes over time?
(a) “they didn’t drive at that speed any more”.
(b) “back twenty years ago when the roads were free and you were
as fast as the best of them”.
4. The poem is a metaphor for the passing of time. Explain this
as best you can. The traffic has been used to highlight that the
world has changed and is faster and that the brother is not going at
the same speed any more. It uses juxtaposition (contrasting the
speed of the freeway and the younger drivers with the older man’s
“steady forty-five”) to show that he no longer fits in.
5. What changes occur in this poem? The voice of the poet
changes from regret (“traffic kept cutting you down”) to a sense of
admiration for the brother as a younger man (“you were as fast as
the best of them”).
6. Outline how this is:
(a) changing worlds - the traffic is faster, the world is faster
(b) changing self – the poet’s brother has failed to change in the
face of advancement in the world (“minding your own business,
miles away”)
(c) changing perspective – the poet changes his perspective from
regret and, in some ways, frustration to admiration for his brother.