Mean Time

What does the title ‘mean’? “in the meantime” refers to the time inbetween events in life. Greenwich mean time: GMT = standard times clocks are set to over the world, it reduces the amount of day light in England, which is referred to in the first stanza of the poem. A ‘MEANtime’: the adjective can suggest a hard time which can be experienced in life which is reflected in her grief throughout the poem.

Mean Time The clocks slid back an hour and stole light from my life as I walked through the wrong part of town, mourning our love. And, of course, unmendable rain fell to the bleak streets where I felt my heart gnaw at all our mistakes. If the darkening sky could lift more than one hour from this day there are words I would never have said nor heard you say. But we will be dead, as we know, beyond all light. These are the shortened days and the endless nights. This is essentially a poem about the feelings of loss and regret that follow the end of a deep, meaningful relationship. Duffy has effectively emphasised and enhanced the power of the feelings by transposing them onto the surrounding environment. It also refers to our desire to literally turn the clock back and be able to undo our regrets. Duffy appears to rage at the limited time we have which we lose in mourning loss. Now highlight in two colours: (a) words relating to time/ light. (b) 2 verbs from each stanza.

Stanza 1 Clocks (symbolic of time) are personified and accused of stealing her life. Sibilants and snake-like movements convey her dislike of this This verb connotes funereal imagery as if the end of the relationship is like a death The clocks slid back an hour and stole light from my life as I walked through the wrong part of town, mourning our love. Her journey is through the “wrong” part of town because of her break up. This could be a literal journey or the metaphorical journey she is on to be restored emotionally First person pronoun but more an expression of a mood or feeling, rather than a revelation of character. If the poem is successful we empathise with the speaker, to look for a moment at the world through their eyes. Her love was a shared love. Could be the clocks changing (shorter days), the time she wasted in a relationship or the time she now spends in mourning. Loss of light can symbolise her loss of hope

Stanza 2 The rain falling juxtaposes with her desire in the third stanza for the dark skies to lift and symbolises the low point she is at in her life The verb ‘gnaw’ personifies her heart as her thoughts of mistakes are slowly eating away at the narrator’s mind And, of course, unmendable rain fell to the bleak streets where I felt my heart gnaw at all our mistakes. The narrator is suffering from regrets in the relationship which may have damaged it. The first person plural ‘our’ shows this was on both sides Unmendable rain is a deviant collocation suggesting both that the rain /mourning is inevitable and that the relationship is broken and dead. Duffy transfers her emotions to the environment, as with reference to the ‘bleak streets’ of the ‘wrong town’ Collocation is where words are usually found together e.g. ‘knife and fork’. Deviant collocations are where the words yoked together are unexpected

Stanza 3 The conjunction ‘if’ introduces an (impossible) conditional clause If the darkening sky could lift more than one hour from this day there are words I would never have said nor heard you say. The narrator specifically regrets words which were used by both her and her lover as the relationship ended Sentence structure has two effects. The narrator wishes that she could have her time over again and that there would be more light (hope) in her life Note the effect of this word being at the end of the line In keeping with her commentary about language, here words can be damaging

Stanza 4 The modal verb ‘will’ reflects the finality and inevitability of death and the use of parenthesis and verb ‘know’ shows that deep down we know this will happen to us all The conjunction ‘but’ introduces a broader theme in the final stanza But we will be dead, as we know, beyond all light. These are the shortened days and the endless nights. Upon death, we will be beyond light and hope. It will, however, rescue the narrator from her suffering. It shows that grieving over a relationship is ultimately meaningless. “Dead” also echoes mourning earlier in the poem The author Vladimir Nabokov said “Common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” Another reference to the winter months/ clocks changing, winter and dark symbolising her barren and hopeless existence which seems “endless” (and “unmendable”). But winter is only a season and passes

FORM AND STRUCTURE Unlike several of the other poems, this does not use a sort of dialogue format - it is simply written in the first person, which perhaps represents and emphasises the personal nature of the poem. It must be particularly important to Duffy herself, as she has chosen it for the title of the anthology. The use of 4 (unrhymed) stanzas of 4 lines each could be mimetic of the regularity of time and the cyclical nature of seasons in our life. Note the skilful use of enjambment, for example in isolating the word ‘lift’ in the 3rd stanza.

What do think are key themes? Your ideas… Regret Lost Love Time Death Light and Darkness What is the poem’s main message? The speaker laments the end of a relationship. The effect of time is explored with reference to the clocks changing. Your ideas…