The River’s Story
by Brian Patten
1
Learning Objectives
As we study this poem you will learn:
• The story of the poem
• More about the terms,
Metaphor: Personification: Tone & Imagery.
• You will also complete some mini tasks an
assignment and a test on the poem.
2
The River’s Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains,
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Kingfishers, disguised as rainbows,
Were my secret agents.
It was a sweet time, a gone-time,
A time before factories grew,
Brick by greedy brick,
And left me cowering,
In monstrous shadows.
Like drunken giants,
They vomited their poisons into me.
Tonight a scattering of vagrant bluebells,
Dwarfed by those same poisons,
Toll my ending.
Children, come and find me if you wish,
I am your inheritance.
Behind the derelict housing-estates,
You will discover my remnants.
Clogged with garbage and junk,
To an open sewer I’ve shrunk.
I, who have flowed through history,
Who have seen hamlets become villages,
Villages become towns, towns become cities,
Am reduced to a trickle of filth,
Beneath the still, burning stars
The River’s Story ~ Brian Patten
Mini Task 1
In look at the poem again and decide :
a) What type of poem this is.
b) What you think its Key Feature is.
c) What the poet is trying to say.
d) What poetic technique is being
used in line 1
The River’s Story ~ Brian Patten
a) This is a narrative poem because it tells us this is the “River’s
Story”.
b) The poem relies on personification as a device to tell the story.
c)
But the ‘story’ is not literal, it is an extended metaphor which
describes the destruction of the environment/planet because of
pollution.
The River’s Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
A river has no memory so the
whole poem then becomes an
exercise in personification.
As ‘life’ was good some time in the
past it implies that ‘life’ is not good
now. But a river is not a living entity
so cannot have a memory or feelings,
so the poet is saying that the
condition of the river is not as good
now as it once was.
Because the ‘remembrance’ of the
past was ‘good’ but life is not now, the
tone of the opening line is sombre.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Mini Task 2
a) What is the mood in these three
lines?
b) What are the key words that help
create the mood?
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Mini Task 2
a) What is the mood in these three
lines? Happy & childish.
b) What are the key words that help
create the mood? shilly-shallied:
Tumbled : laughed and gurgled
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
‘shilly-shallied’ is alliteration’ and
has a childish bouncy rhythm which
lightens the tone of the opening line.
Tumbling down mountains,
laughing and gurgling are also all
childish, happy activities that help
maintain the light and happy tone.
There is also some imagery here as
you can imagine the river flowing
over rocks as it goes down a
mountainside.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
Stretching and yawning indicate
relaxation and help maintain the
tone established in Line 2.
‘Insects, weightless as’ is a
simile. With this line we also get
the first clear use of imagery as
you can imagine insects landing
on the surface of the river ~ its
‘skin’ ~ more personification.
Note the chime on ‘woods’ and ‘floods’.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
Mini Task 3
Describe the imagery used in these lines.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
Mini Task 3
Describe the imagery used in these lines.
‘lily-pads like medals’ is another simile and
moves us from the image of round lily pads
floating on the river, to war. Medals are
awarded for bravery and this idea leads on
to….
…..the ‘battle scarred’ fish, perhaps salmon,
who have fought their way upstream to
their breeding grounds.
The gossiping fish is another example of
personification and gossiping is a lively,
friendly, happy activity. It relies on imagery
and creates a picture of fish swimming
around each other in the river as if they
were communicating, even gossiping.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Again this is imagery as the poet
describes the random movement of
dozens of insects like an aerial ballet. But
this moves us on to another idea; only
cultured, organized civilizations have arts
such as ballet and the notion of the
development of civilization is a theme that
Brian Pattern wishes to explore in more
detail later in the poem.
In this line then, the River’s ‘civilization’
would seem to be cultured and peaceful,
but....
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Kingfishers, disguised as rainbows,
Were my secret agents.
Note the Kingfisher colour imagery.
....Civilizations at peace don’t need secret
agents. Those on the verge or war do. So
there is the beginning of a change in tone
in these lines. The childish happiness
described above has gone and who is the
river at war with.....
Fish dying in rivers is a sure sign of
pollution and in this way the fish are the
River's ambassadors telling humanity they
are destroying the environment with their
pollution.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Kingfishers, disguised as rainbows,
Were my secret agents.
It was a sweet time, a gone-time,
A time before factories grew
Brick by greedy brick,
Mini Task 4
Write down :
A. How has the mood changed in
these lines ?
B. What are the key words the
poet uses to change the mood?
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Kingfishers, disguised as rainbows,
Were my secret agents.
It was a sweet time, a gone-time,
A time before factories grew
Brick by greedy brick,
Mini Task 4
Write down :
A. How has the mood changed in
these lines ? Become sad,
somber, even angry by the
end.
B. What are the key words the
poet uses to change the mood?
gone-time : factories grew :
greedy.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Kingfishers, disguised as rainbows,
Were my secret agents.
It was a sweet time, a gone-time,
A time before factories grew
Brick by greedy brick,
A real change in mood on this line from
the happy light tone at the start of the
poem to one that is more somber and
sorrowful. There is also an awful finality at
the end of the line with ‘a gone time’.
Perhaps the question the poet is asking
here is have the ‘good’ times gone forever
or can the clock be turned back?
Now we start to get to the point of the
poem; it is the ‘factories’ and
encroachment of man that has destroyed
the River’s gurgling joy.
‘Brick by greedy brick’ is in itself a
metaphor for mankind’s greed; a greed
that places financial gain above
environmental damage .
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Kingfishers, disguised as rainbows,
Were my secret agents.
It was a sweet time, a gone-time,
A time before factories grew
Brick by greedy brick,
And left me cowering,
In monstrous shadows.
Like drunken giants,
They vomited their poisons into me.
Mini Task 5
Select one Key Word from each of these lines.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Kingfishers, disguised as rainbows,
Were my secret agents.
It was a sweet time, a gone-time,
A time before factories grew
Brick by greedy brick,
And left me cowering,
In monstrous shadows.
Like drunken giants,
They vomited their poisons into me.
Mini Task 5
Select one Key Word from each of these lines.
Cowering : monstrous : giants : poisons
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Kingfishers, disguised as rainbows,
Were my secret agents.
It was a sweet time, a gone-time,
A time before factories grew
Brick by greedy brick,
And left me cowering,
In monstrous shadows.
Like drunken giants,
They vomited their poisons into me.
All the confidence and joy has now
gone from the River, it is a broken
spirit, left ‘cowering’ in the
‘monstrous shadows’ of the buildings
that now surround it. Again, very
graphic imagery here as you can
almost see the huge factories
towering over the River.
More personification and another
simile ‘Like drunken giants,’ and then
another graphic metaphor ‘They
vomited their poisons into me.’ A
reference to the way that factory
effluent, often untreated, was
discharged into rivers.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
I remember when life was good.
I shilly-shallied across meadows,
Tumbled down mountains
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Kingfishers, disguised as rainbows,
Were my secret agents.
It was a sweet time, a gone-time,
A time before factories grew
Brick by greedy brick,
And left me cowering,
In monstrous shadows.
Like drunken giants,
They vomited their poisons into me.
Tonight a scattering of vagrant bluebells,
Dwarfed by those same poisons,
Toll my ending.
Bluebells are a wild flower that
appear in woodlands in spring. They
do not grow in urban areas so have
survived man’s ‘poisons’. But then
they turn into a tolling death knell ~
the River’s end!
The combination of the bells from
‘Bluebells and ‘Toll’ is an allusion, a
reference to John Done’s poem. For
Whom The Bell Tolls.
John Done ~ For Whom The Bell Tolls
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
22
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
Children, come and find me if you wish,
I am your inheritance.
Behind the derelict housing-estates,
You will discover my remnants.
Clogged with garbage and junk,
To an open sewer I’ve shrunk.
Mini Task 6
a) Describe the imagery used in these lines
b) What are the key words that create
these images?
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
Children, come and find me if you wish,
I am your inheritance.
Behind the derelict housing-estates,
You will discover my remnants.
Clogged with garbage and junk,
To an open sewer I’ve shrunk.
Mini Task 6
a) Describe the imagery used in these lines
Children finding a polluted and
clogged ‘river’ at the back of the rundown and derelict housing estate in
which they live.
b) What are the key words that create
these images? Children : derelict :
remnants : Clogged : garbage : junk :
sewer : shrunk.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
Children, come and find me if you wish,
I am your inheritance.
Behind the derelict housing-estates,
You will discover my remnants.
Clogged with garbage and junk,
To an open sewer I’ve shrunk.
The River now calls to Mankind's children,
a symbol of hope for the future as they may
be able to change Mankind’s ways ~ but
only if ‘they wish’.
Another metaphor, but one that gives a
stark warning ~ the children will inherit a
poisoned world if they do not ‘wish’ to do
something about it.
Some very clear imagery here as the river
is now just a ’remnant’ of the majestic
watercourse it once was. It is now a relic,
remainder, left over residue of that joyful
spring at the start of the poem.
Note the rhyme on ‘junk’ and ‘shrunk’.
And more, the river is now treated like
This adds ‘punch’ to the end of a stanza some sort of scrap yard or worse, a ‘sewer’.
that has called upon the children of the
world to save the River and their future.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
Children, come and find me if you wish,
I am your inheritance.
Behind the derelict housing-estates,
You will discover my remnants.
Clogged with garbage and junk,
To an open sewer I’ve shrunk.
I, who have flowed through history,
Who have seen hamlets become villages,
Villages become towns, towns become cities,
Am reduced to a trickle of filth,
The metaphorical journey of the
River is a journey through time as
well as geographically from mountain
to sea.
The middle of this stanza uses
imagery to show how the impact of
mankind has grown over time. Note
the use of repetition here to reinforce
the notion of a growing humanity.
Another reference to the ‘remnant’
the River had become in the previous
stanza and it is now a mere ‘trickle of
filth’ . Again this is a strong and
graphic image.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
Children, come and find me if you wish,
I am your inheritance.
Behind the derelict housing-estates,
You will discover my remnants.
Clogged with garbage and junk,
To an open sewer I’ve shrunk.
I, who have flowed through history,
Who have seen hamlets become villages,
Villages become towns, towns become cities,
Am reduced to a trickle of filth,
Beneath the still, burning stars
An interesting and enigmatic final
line. Perhaps this is a final warning,
the stars endure forever, Mankind
might not!
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
Children, come and find me if you wish,
I am your inheritance.
Behind the derelict housing-estates,
You will discover my remnants.
Clogged with garbage and junk,
To an open sewer I’ve shrunk.
I, who have flowed through history,
Who have seen hamlets become villages,
Villages become towns, towns become cities,
Am reduced to a trickle of filth,
Beneath the still, burning stars
Mini Task 7
Write down what you think the last
line means.
The River’ Story ~ Brian Patten
Children, come and find me if you wish,
I am your inheritance.
Behind the derelict housing-estates,
You will discover my remnants.
Clogged with garbage and junk,
To an open sewer I’ve shrunk.
I, who have flowed through history,
Who have seen hamlets become villages,
Villages become towns, towns become cities,
Am reduced to a trickle of filth,
Beneath the still, burning stars
Mini Task 7
Write down what you think the last
line means.
It is a warning to mankind. The stars
endure forever. Mankind might not,
unless mankind changes the way it
treats the planet.
Assignment
What elements in The River’s Story make it a
poem with a very effective environmental
message.
400-500 words by Wed 12 Dec
31