The Laboratory

Browning has used a rather jaunty rhythm in this poem, which sounds almost comic in contrast to the subject matter. He also has his speaker move jerkily from one thing to another, as if she is distracted by what she sees around her in the chemist's shop.
Everyone's idea of the speaker will be different, but I see her as quite young, rather silly, and obviously with a jealous and vindictive nature.
There is a rather lengthy but comprehensive analysis of the poem here
and a powerpoint presentation which explains the subject matter and language in a simpler way here.
I'd be happy to hear any other ideas about the young woman in the poem, but Browning has certainly created a real character, and a believable setting for her.

On The Train

On the Train contrasts the everyday, "Darling, I'm on the train", that overused sentence you hear all the time from people on their mobiles, calling to tell wife or boyfriend that they are on their way home, with the horror of the Paddington rail crash, and the people who would never see their homes again, whose phones "ring in the rubble" while "wolves howl into silent telephones."

GillianClarke mentions 9/11 in the Q&A about this poem on her website, and there is something dreadful about the idea of mobiles still ringing after their owners are dead.
There is a useful analysis of the poem here.

When answering a question about this poem, I wouldn't spend too much time on 9/11, but if you make a reference to Clarke's own comment on her site, and share your own thoughts on the way mobile phones are used, you will be working towards an A/A* grade because you are showing that you are making connections, and setting the poem in a social context.

If I were going to compare this to one of the pre 1914 poems, I might compare it to On My First Sonne as it deals with mortality, and with love of family. Any other ideas? Which Seamus Heaney poem could you use as contrast to this?

On My First Sonne

I think you can link this with any one of several poems in the Anthology, but Catrin (because it's about the relationship between a parent and child) and Mid-Term break (because it's about the death of a child) seem the ones that you could talk most about.

For some help on the poems of Seamus Heaney, and a good Venn diagram showing links between his poems, try http://62.8.97.161/images/587-T2.pdf.

Both Johnson and Heaney really make me understand how terrible it is when the person who has died is a child. Although Johnson tries to come to terms with the death, suggesting that he son was only "lent" to him, and that he is lucky to have "scaped worlds and fleshes rage", meaning that his son has not had to deal with all the awful things that can happen to somebody during a lifetime, he is clearly devastated.

He says that his son was his "best piece of poetrie" and for a famous poet, presumably proud of his poems, this says it all. When he hopes that his son rests in "soft peace", I can see that he loved him. The word "soft" implies gentleness and quiet and I imagine his son asleep under a silk sheet.

Heaney creates a similar image in Mid term Break, when he talks about the snowdrops and candles, which "soothed" the bedside. To soothe somebody is to calm them and care for them, and again, I have this picture of a child asleep under a white sheet. The fact that the only sign that he has been hurt is the "poppy bruise" (another reference to flowers) on his temple, makes it seem even more likely that he is only asleep, not really dead.

However, it is the last line of the poem which really does for me every time.It makes the death so final, standing as a line all by itself at the end of the poem, "A four foot box, a foot for every year". It's such a poignant image - that small coffin - bringing it home to the reader that this was a very, very young child.

Gillian Clarke

We study Gillian Clarke's poems in year 11. Take a look at her website, and the poem, October, which you can find in the section for students. I love the way she describes the trees, as they "tremble gradually to gold".

The alliteration makes the words gradually and gold stick in the mind, and the idea of nature transforming itself into a precious metal, with a gentle, minimal, possibly fearful motion is attractive to me.

I wonder why she used the word tremble, rather than shiver. Maybe the word tremble suggests fear, and the death of her friend did panic her a little.

Certainly, it makes her want to get a lot of writing done, and she does refer to "panic" later, which I associate with the idea that she wants to write everything she needs to write as a poet before she has to leave.

I feel a bit that way myself, having spent the last three years spending time on learning new things about teaching, and working in classrooms instead of doing any writing of my own.....

There is always a choice to be made when one is interested in a lot of things. I think I'm making the right choices - hope you do the same!

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.
Robert Fritz