Mother, Any Distance Greater than a Single Span
Simon Armitage * Track #11 On Past and Present: Poetry Anthology
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Album Past and Present: Poetry Anthology
- #1
When We Two PartedLord Byron
- #2
Love’s PhilosophyPercy Bysshe Shelley
- #3
Porphyria’s LoverRobert Browning
- #4
Neutral TonesThomas Hardy
- #5
The Farmer’s BrideCharlotte Mew
- #6
Eden RockCharles Causley
- #7
FollowerSeamus Heaney
- #8Mother, Any Distance Greater than a Single Span
Simon Armitage
- #9
Before You Were MineCarol Ann Duffy
- #10
Winter SwansOwen Sheers
- #11
Climbing My GrandfatherAndrew Waterhouse
- #12Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley
- #13
LondonWilliam Blake
- #14
Extract from the PreludeWilliam Wordsworth
- #15My Last Duchess
Robert Browning
- #16
The Charge of the Light BrigadeAlfred Lord Tennyson
- #17
ExposureWilfred Owen
- #18
Storm on the IslandSeamus Heaney
- #19
Bayonet ChargeTed Hughes
- #20Remains
Simon Armitage
- #21
War PhotographerCarol Ann Duffy
- #22
TissueImtiaz Dharker
- #23
ÉmigréeCarol Rumens
- #24
Checking Out Me HistoryJohn Agard
- #25
KamikazeBeatrice Garland
Mother, Any Distance Greater than a Single Span by Simon Armitage
Performed by
Simon ArmitageAbout
This is a poem about a mother-son relationship. She is helping him set up his new house, measuring for carpets and curtains etc; presumably the first time he has left the family home. On one level it is the practical story of a mother helping her son, and another level it is an extended metaphor for...
Mother, Any Distance Greater than a Single Span Annotated
Mother, any distance greater than a single span
requires a second pair of hands.
You come to help me measure windows, pelmets, doors,
the acres of the walls, the prairies of the floors.
You at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape, recording
length, reporting metres, centimetres back to base, then leaving
up the stairs, the line still feeding out, unreeling
years between us. Anchor. Kite.
I space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb
the ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where something
has to give;
two floors below your fingertips still pinch
the last one-hundredth of an inch...I reach
towards a hatch that opens on an endless sky
to fall or fly.
Mother, Any Distance Greater than a Single Span Q&A
Why does this poem use rhyme?????
In a free verse poem occasional irregular and internal rhyme serves to create unity. Poets often use assonant and consonant rhyme to create a subtle sense of cohesion. A reader senses that something is pulling the poem together, but may not notice the rhyme if it is cleverly embedded.
would you consider the anchor and kite references as an oxymoron or not?
No, it’s not an oxymoron. The two nouns are describing complementary objects that sum up the relationship. They are not a contradiction in terms.
Yes, I think it is. A kite flies and, with limitations, implies adventure and exploration. It can be buffeted by wind. An anchor makes an object steady...