1. St Patricks College questions and 10 Mary St Notes and Questions

2. St Patrick’s Questions
What is being said?
In what ways does the poet present an alienated student?
What aspects of school life does he seem most affected by?
How does the school try to promote a sense of belonging amongst its students? Why do these methods fail to make the poet feel any allegiance?
What impressions are given about the boy’s opinion of his mother’s decision to enrol her son at St Patrick’s?
What lasting impression is the reader left with by the poet’s evaluation of his school years?

3. Questions continued How is it being said?
How do the opening stanzas position the reader in regard to the impressions given about the school as a formative influence on its students?
How effective is religious symbolism within the poem in developing the major themes of alienation and disaffection?
What recurring motifs help reinforce the main perception of St Patrick’s as an educational facility with “closed eyes”.

4. 10 Mary Street
‘10 Mary Street’ is both autobiographical and a more general representation of how children observe the details of domestic life. Skrzynecki conjures a scene of domestic bliss and comfort throughout the poem. He describes his family home and focuses on the family’s connection to the house and land. Again the poet’s perception differs greatly from that of his parents, while his parents tend the garden carefully, he ravages it.

5. Techniques
Simile- Metaphor Imagery Juxtaposition- parents lives vs sons? ?? Irony

6. How can you relate belonging to 10 Mary Street?

7. What is being said
The context is both physical and psychological . What did the address of 10 Mary Street provide for the family that resided there?
How does the poet create the sense that the worlds of the parents and the child are different and yet connected?
As in the previous poems, the garden has a deep symbolic relevance to the poet’s family. In what ways is it ‘Like adopted children’?
The house is lovingly depicted as a ‘home’ and not just a residence. Find evidence for this in the poem.

8. How is it being said?
How does the poet present the concept that his parents ‘Kept pre-war Europe alive’? How have they responded to the migrant experience?
What significance is associated with the house ‘key’, toward the end of the poem? What literal and figurative meanings does it have?
How does the poet create the perception that the address was mourned?
Analyse the imagery of the key, lock and garden in the poem? How does it serve to reinforce the central themes of stability and change?