1. We remember your childhood well
Think about the title.
The poem is a dramatic monologue:
The speaker sounds very much on the defensive: clearly the grown-up child has complained about something or asked an awkward question. The parent insists that the child was brought up well and was loved

2. Conflict? There is a lot of tension between the speaker and listener.
We get the impression that the listener is not given much chance to speak - or, if they do, that it is ignored

3. As readers, we cannot be sure whose memory is more accurate - the parents' or the child's.
Is the child exaggerating about the horrors that appear to have taken place?
Or, are the parents trying to convince themselves that the events didn't happen?

4. Structure The poem consists of six regular 3 lined stanzas
Each stanza begins with a statement that denies what the child believes to have happened - 'Nobody hurt you'

5. Diction and Tone Colloquial diction with slang mixed in
Dark undertone to cliches:
Anyone’s guess (slang-casual confidence)
Skidmarks of sin…
All contributes to a:
Dismissive and patronizing

6. Language
There are many frightening ideas in the poem that are suggested but not developed:
"The bad man on the moors" (line 2),
a door being locked (line 3),
the child being "sent ... away" (line 13).
definite sense of fear on the part of the child.
"skidmarks of sin" (line 16) what is
“laid you wide open for Hell" (line 17).

7. violent verbs -
'hurt, argued, forced, begged' - which add to the sense of danger.

8. Onomatopoeia is used to describe the voices, "Boom. Boom. Boom
Onomatopoeia is used to describe the voices, "Boom. Boom. Boom. We associate a booming sound with explosions and bombs
Also relates to the sound of the authority’s voices (parents, teachers, despots)

9. theme "the secret police of your childhood”
Poem about memory, childhood, truth and lies.
A parent trying to soft peddle a difficult childhood?

10. Punctuation
Caesuras in middle of lines. Tension pause in conversation.
End stops.
No room for argument
Speaker has last word

11. terms
Colloquialism: in a conversational manner that may include slang:
Connotations: emotional association a reader has for a certain word:
Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds at beginning of sentences;
Assonance: repetition of same vowel sound
: open, broken; remembered, tendered
Consonance: identical consonant sound at end of word preceded by different vowel:
Home, same, breath, worth

12. Stealing Dramatic Situation? Dramatic Monologue Angry tone
Speaker is a young misfit who yearns for something better.
Speaking to a counselor, perhaps?

13. Structure 5-5lined regular verse. Unrhymed and irregular in meter.
Begins and ends with question.
Nothing unusual about syntax
Stanzas control the poem…keep it from spilling over. Contains the energy

14. Language Contrast of colloquial and poetic diction
Slang: “Better off dead.”
One word sentences
Lyrical lines: “A tall white mute/beneth the whinter moon.”
Sharp violent verbs: piercing my gut
Slice of ice

15. language Metaphor: snowman,
Simile: “ avmind as cold as the slice of ice within my own brain.
Caesuras in the middle of the lines.

16. Musical devices
Internal rhyme: “I started with the head/ better off dead
Slice of ice
Alliteration: ripped out in rags
Repetition: Again. Again.
Assonance: mute, moon, mats, mind: