Carol Ann Duffy Megan, Zoe and Saffron Never Go Back Carol Ann Duffy Megan, Zoe and Saffron

Never Go Back by Carol Ann Duffy In the bar where the living dead drink all day and a jukebox reminisces in a cracked voice there is nothing to say. You talk for hours in agreed motifs, anecdotes shuffled and dealt from a well-thumbed pack, snapshots. The smoky mirrors flatter; your ghost buys a round for the parched, old faces of the past. Never return to the space where you left time pining till it died. Outside, the streets tear litter in their thin hands, a tired wind whistles through the blackened stumps of houses at a limping dog. God, this is an awful place says the friend, the alcoholic, whose head is a negative of itself. You listen and nod, bereaved. Baby, what you owe to this place is unpayable in the only currency you have. So drink up. Shut up, then get them in again. Again. And never go back. The house where you were one of the brides has cancer. It prefers to be left alone nursing its growth and cracks, each groan and creak accusing as you climb the stairs to the bedroom and draw your loved body on blurred air with the simple power of loss. All the lies told here, and all the cries of love, suddenly swarm in the room, sting you, disappear. You shouldn’t be here. You follow your shadow through the house, discover that objects held in the hands can fill a room with pain. You lived here only to stand here now and half-believe that you did. A small moment of death by a window myopic with rain. You learn this lesson hard, speechless, slamming the front door, shaking plaster confetti from your hair. A taxi implying a hearse takes you slowly, the long way round, to the station. The driver looks like death. The places you knew have changed their names by neon, cheap tricks in a theme-park with no name. Sly sums of money wink at you in the cab. At a red light, you wipe a slick of cold sweat from the glass for a drenched whore to stare you full in the face. You pay to get out, pass the Welcome To sign on the way to the barrier, an emigrant for the last time. The train sighs and pulls you away, rewinding the city like a film, snapping it off at the river. You go for a drink, released by a journey into nowhere, nowhen, and all the way home you forget. Forget. Already the fires and lights come on wherever you live. In this poem, the narrator returns to the place where they grew up / used to live and feels depressed by the changes to the area that they find and the memories evoked by the trip. There are overall semantic fields and themes of old age, death, illness, alcoholism, returning to your past and memories within each of the stanzas of the poem. The narrator encounters people that they were once close to but is unable to communicate with them in a meaningful way.

Time and the jukebox are personified to accentuate there importance to the narrator – the jukebox is reminiscing as is the narrator and shows the pain of the old memories – ‘cracked voice’. There is a semantic field of old age and death within this stanza. Oxymoron – symbolising the old or ill or those who have given up on life The context and theme of a bar and drinking alcohol is frequent throughout the stanza. In the bar where the living dead drink all day and a jukebox reminisces in a cracked voice there is nothing to say. You talk for hours in agreed motifs, anecdotes shuffled and dealt from a well-thumbed pack, snapshots. The smoky mirrors flatter; your ghost buys a round for the parched, old faces of the past. Never return to the space where you left time pining till it died. Antithesis Metaphor alluding to the narrator’s old age / the sense of giving up on life / their almost non-existent presence in the bar. Gambling (physically or with your life) or luck Shows an atmosphere of ambiguity and the unknown – mystery / magic Time and the past are key themes in this stanza The abstract noun, ‘ghost’ suggests that the narrator doesn’t feel entirely present in the bar – doesn’t feel like themselves or the person they used to be when they were in the bar before. Direct address to audience / narrator talking to themselves internally and remembering events Enjambment is used throughout the stanza to emphasise certain lexis such as , ‘hours’ and phrases such as, ‘smoky mirrors’. Memories and reminiscing on past events are key themes in this stanza.

declarative sentences Personification is used as poetic imagery to show the desolate and grim setting of the streets. Themes of alcoholism, drinking and death / bereavement. Personification and pathetic fallacy show the ‘tired’ and gloomy atmosphere of the setting. Outside, the streets tear litter in their thin hands, a tired wind whistles through the blackened stumps of houses at a limping dog. God, this is an awful place says the friend, the alcoholic, whose head is a negative of itself. You listen and nod, bereaved. Baby, what you owe to this place is unpayable in the only currency you have. So drink up. Shut up, then get them in again. Again. And never go back. Dialogue – written in italics to show that it is spoken Direct address to audience / narrator talking to themselves internally and remembering events Metaphor Repetition Repetition and consonance – stresses the lexis, ‘up’ and shows the tension felt by the narrator. Alliteration Short, simple, declarative sentences These features are used to show the monotony of the actions and accentuate the narrators feeling of being trapped in an unpleasant cycle.

Direct address to audience / The atmosphere in the house is described with emotive language as hostile and full of tension. Direct address to audience / narrator talking to themselves internally and remembering events The house where you were one of the brides has cancer. It prefers to be left alone nursing its growth and cracks, each groan and creak accusing as you climb the stairs to the bedroom and draw your loved body on blurred air with the simple power of loss. All the lies told here, and all the cries of love, suddenly swarm in the room, sting you, disappear. Personification Theme of illness and frailty Metaphor – ambiguous – symbolic of a hazy memory Internal rhyme Enjambment is used throughout the stanza to emphasise certain lexis such as, ‘creak’ and ‘love’ – creating a clear image of the narrator’s feeling and the setting. It is also used to create caesuras that mimic natural speech. Triplet Metaphor

You shouldn’t be here. You follow your shadow Enjambment is used throughout the stanza to emphasise certain lexis such as, ‘pain’ and ‘rain’ – creating a clear image of the narrator’s feeling and the setting. It is also used to create caesuras that mimic natural speech. Direct address to audience and repetition / narrator talking to themselves internally and remembering events. Rhyme of ‘pain’ and ‘rain’ – creates a structure and rhythm for the poem and emphasises each of the lexis individually. You shouldn’t be here. You follow your shadow through the house, discover that objects held in the hands can fill a room with pain. You lived here only to stand here now and half-believe that you did. A small moment of death by a window myopic with rain. You learn this lesson hard, speechless, slamming the front door, shaking plaster confetti from your hair. Metaphor Pathetic fallacy – showing the mood of the narrator to be unhappy “myopic” –> short-sighted Alliteration Another reference to death Metaphor List – creates a long, complex, declarative sentence to aid emotive description of events and the creation of imagery. Onomatopoeia is used to highlight the narrators mood as they leave the house. The verb, ‘slamming’ suggests that the narrator is unhappy with the the memories brought back to them.

The description of a taxi as ‘implying a hearse’ can suggest Metaphor – changes in a familiar place – ‘theme park with no name’ (the town / the narrators life) – the demise of a place they once new The description of a taxi as ‘implying a hearse’ can suggest that the narrator feels as if the old personality that they had when they lived in this area is now dead. Like life in the town, the long way round – can’t get out of the town fast enough A taxi implying a hearse takes you slowly, the long way round, to the station. The driver looks like death. The places you knew have changed their names by neon, cheap tricks in a theme-park with no name. Sly sums of money wink at you in the cab. At a red light, you wipe a slick of cold sweat from the glass for a drenched whore to stare you full in the face. Alliteration – highlights the cunningness of the people of the town and the narrators disgust of the money and the town. Theme of death Personification – shows the vulgarity of the town and the temptation of the narrator. Metaphor for condensation or actually sweat on the glass. The narrator sees the town as a grotesque / ‘cheap’ and they no longer fit in there and are relieved to be leaving / escaping. Direct address to audience / narrator talking to themselves internally and remembering events.

Repetition – puts stress on the lexis and shows its importance. Direct address to audience / narrator talking to themselves internally and remembering events. Shows that it is a sign and is juxtaposing to her leaving the town. Capitals Personification – symbolising the narrators relief of escaping the town You pay to get out, pass the Welcome To sign on the way to the barrier, an emigrant for the last time. The train sighs and pulls you away, rewinding the city like a film, snapping it off at the river. You go for a drink, released by a journey into nowhere, nowhen, and all the way home you forget. Forget. Already the fires and lights come on wherever you live. Never going back to the town again – it is not home to them anymore. They escape to their new ‘home’ where they feel accepted and happy while ‘forget[ting]’ about the town they just came from. Simile Nonsense word – slight repetition Repetition – puts stress on the lexis and shows its importance. Short, sharp, declarative sentence (only one word) - Stresses the importance of the lexis, ‘forget’. This shows that the narrator really does want to forget this experience and the town. Warm / happy – the opposite of the town that she just came from – somewhere that she loves.

How do Nostalgia and Never Go Back present the theme of memory? Returning to your home town Both feature pain of returning but in different ways/ for different reasons. Theme of death in both poems (one is physical illness, one metaphorical). Both about fear (Nostalgia – fear of (not) leaving, NGB fear of memory). Sense of regret. Second person pronoun (direct address) “you” in NGB whereas Nostalgia uses the situation of Swiss mercenaries to convey the idea of nostalgia. Subtle internal, irregular rhyming – Nostalgia (“kill” and “ill”) and NGB (“pain” and “rain”). Use of imagery – metaphor and personification in both poems (WHAT DO THESE CONVEY?) Nostalgia has lexical field of war, NGB has lexical field of illness. Use of oxymoron: Nostalgia (“sweet pain”) and NGB (“living dead”).