Nostalgia
Context: 18th century Swiss mercenaries, soldiering for money
but regretting and seeking return
Themes: Nostalgia, time, longing, desperation
FC: 1st stanza
Those early mercenaries, it made them ill – Unidentified pronoun “it” – their condition is an
leaving the mountains, leaving the high, fine unknown force, unnamed until the 2nd stanza.
air The affliction of Nostalgia making them Unknown feeling
to go down, dow physically, literally “Ill” – was an unknown
n. What they got feeling/ sickness. alienised, disassociated
was money, dull, crude coins clenched
in the teeth; strange food, the wrong taste,
HARSH HYPHEN: physical break within poem
representing the distance between the soldiers Money doesn’t buy
stones in the belly; and the wrong sounds, and their home. Feeling of missing home vs
“the mountains” and “fine air”
happiness
the wrong smells, the wrong light, every
breath – Epizeuxis: “down, down” – physical as well as
wrong. They had an ache here, Doctor, mental journey. Poor mental condition as they
they pined, wept, grown men. It was killing sink deeper.
them. The problem: unable to diagnose.
Anaphora + Epistrophe: guilt, wish they never
left.
It was a given name. Hearing tell of it,
there were those who stayed put, fearful
After doc diagnosis… ALLITERATION of “h”: repeated
sound emblematic of the word passing from person to Diagnosis further
of a sweet pain in the heart; of how it hurt,
in that heavier air, to hear
person, disease/ creates a soft flow + sombre tone
GRAMMATICAL ISOLATION - melancholic tune to the regret + melancholy
poem, sensual, elevate the synaesthesia of the poem.
the music of home – the sad pipes – Nostalgia being a multi-sensory concept itself, the
summoning, poem essentially embodies the concept, being a
in the dwindling light of the plains, mechanism to impose the feeling of nostalgia upon the
a particular place – where maybe you met a reader.
girl,
or searched for a yellow ball in the long SOMBRE PARADOX furthers the sense of time passing.
grass, Verb “maybe”, sense of potential opportunity in
found it just as your mother called you in. parenthesis to distinctly separate the moments
Longing vs inability reality.
But the word was out. Some would never
False hope reality
EPANELEPSIS: Now the term has been coined, you can now relate,
helping?
fall in love had they not heard of love.
So the priest stood at the stile with his head
in his hands, crying at the workings of ANAPHORA: contrasted with anaphora of “wrong” – repetition
induces hope that things have stayed the same but “everything
memory changed” tragedy
through the colour of leaves, and the
schoolteacher
opened a book to the scent of her youth, too
late. ADVERB: “chiming” – focus on a specific moment, it’s the
It was Spring when one returned, with his life mediocre moments he wants to relive – addresses the importance
of living in the present as well as this issue of hedonic adaption,
in a sack on his back, to find the same street leaving us to yearn for the past.
with the same sign over the inn, the same
bell
chiming the hour on the clock, and
everything changed.
WAGOLL paragraph
, Captain of the Top of the Forth Team
Context: 20th century, allusions to the 1960s, part of a trivia
team
Themes: Aging, Nostalgia, Disappointment, identity
Structure: free verse
FC: 2nd stanza
Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Baby Love, Oh Pretty ALLUSION TRIPLET: knowledge and memory skills, Sensory imagery – the sound
Woman sufficing the phrase with this to demonstrate what
were in the Top Ten that month, October, and the is important to him of “bzz” is what stimulates his
Beatles memory.
were everywhere else. I can give you the B-side AUDITORY REFERENCES: to evoke memories of past
of the Supremes one. Hang on. Come See About era which proliferate into structure as it becomes
Me? FRAGMENTED CONVERSATIONAL:
I lived in a kind of fizzing hope. Gargling
with Vimto. The clever smell of my METAPHOR: beauty of childhood where the world is
satchel. Convent your oyster
girls.
I pulled my hair forward with a steel comb that I
PERSONIFICATION: pursuing this disjointed
blew structure of language and ideas within, could think
like Mick, my lips numb as a two-hour snog. liberally back then, links to adverb “fizzing”,
constant flow of energy
No snags. The Nile rises in April. Blue and white. Flow of success and ease, satisfaction of innocent
The humming-bird’s song is made by its wings, knowledge, he knows many trivia answers but isn’t
which possessed with adult world knowledge yet. Reality check
beat
so fast that they blur in flight. I knew the capitals, CAESURA: Quality of perfection we are made to
the Kings and Queens, the dates. In class, the deeply acknowledge and relish in as he wants to
white through his words.
sleeve
of my shirt saluted again and again. Sir! … PRESENT TENSE: specific facts, contrasts absolute
Correct. fixity of the poetic voice’s past self, stuck in the
Later, I whooped at the side of my bike, a past, with the rest of the world moving onwards,
cowboy, creating sense of duality between past and future
they are unsure how to feel or where they stand.
mounted it running in one jump. I sped down
Dyke
Hill, COLOUR COHESION: direct similarities between the
no hands, famous, learning, dominus domine colour of, The Nile as well as of the hummingbird.
dominum. This cohesion is then shown to leave and
figuratively “blur in flight”, via a…
ADVERB: literal blur of wings, offers the poetic
voice a future, reality check, confirmed to him by
the RHYME of, “White” and “flight”, to be
memorable and assertive.
Duffy uses rhyme to acknowledge the poetic
voice’s feeling of cohesion between their past ideas
and to emphasise the fact that they are now gone,
which develops their nostalgia around the whole
matter.
Confident and secure
Dave Dee Dozy … try me. Come on. My mother PHONETIC ALLITERATION RYHTYM: Very in tune with
kept his knowledge, flows from his tongue, makes him
my mascot Gonk confident – IMPERATIVE, cocky.
on the TV set for a year. And the photograph. I
look
TRIPLET DEFINITE ARTICLES: Important features
so brainy you’d think I’d just had a bath. The prevalent to him
blazer.
The badge. The tie. The first chord of A Hard
Day’s ALUSION: to an actual ‘hard day’s night’ –
juxtaposition between day + night, past and
Night
present
loud in my head. I ran to the Spinney in my prize
shoes,
up Churchill Way, up Nelson Drive, over pink Patriotic, patriarchal values
pavements
that girls chalked on, in a blue evening; and I
stamped
the pawprints of badgers and skunks in the
mud. My
country.
I want it back. The captain. The one with all DEFINITIE ARTICLE: Importance. Fulfilment as a
smart male leader
the
World changing around him
answers. Bzz.
ASSONANCE + SIMILE: emphasises JUXTAPOSITION
My name was in red on Lucille Green’s of youthful feelings, a boy may not be as much as a
jotter. I smiled threat as the girls, “stamped” adverb, power and
as wide as a child who went missing on the aggression, does he miss the past values? Novelty
way home of being a kid in general.
from school. The keeny. I say to my stale
wife
Context: 18th century Swiss mercenaries, soldiering for money
but regretting and seeking return
Themes: Nostalgia, time, longing, desperation
FC: 1st stanza
Those early mercenaries, it made them ill – Unidentified pronoun “it” – their condition is an
leaving the mountains, leaving the high, fine unknown force, unnamed until the 2nd stanza.
air The affliction of Nostalgia making them Unknown feeling
to go down, dow physically, literally “Ill” – was an unknown
n. What they got feeling/ sickness. alienised, disassociated
was money, dull, crude coins clenched
in the teeth; strange food, the wrong taste,
HARSH HYPHEN: physical break within poem
representing the distance between the soldiers Money doesn’t buy
stones in the belly; and the wrong sounds, and their home. Feeling of missing home vs
“the mountains” and “fine air”
happiness
the wrong smells, the wrong light, every
breath – Epizeuxis: “down, down” – physical as well as
wrong. They had an ache here, Doctor, mental journey. Poor mental condition as they
they pined, wept, grown men. It was killing sink deeper.
them. The problem: unable to diagnose.
Anaphora + Epistrophe: guilt, wish they never
left.
It was a given name. Hearing tell of it,
there were those who stayed put, fearful
After doc diagnosis… ALLITERATION of “h”: repeated
sound emblematic of the word passing from person to Diagnosis further
of a sweet pain in the heart; of how it hurt,
in that heavier air, to hear
person, disease/ creates a soft flow + sombre tone
GRAMMATICAL ISOLATION - melancholic tune to the regret + melancholy
poem, sensual, elevate the synaesthesia of the poem.
the music of home – the sad pipes – Nostalgia being a multi-sensory concept itself, the
summoning, poem essentially embodies the concept, being a
in the dwindling light of the plains, mechanism to impose the feeling of nostalgia upon the
a particular place – where maybe you met a reader.
girl,
or searched for a yellow ball in the long SOMBRE PARADOX furthers the sense of time passing.
grass, Verb “maybe”, sense of potential opportunity in
found it just as your mother called you in. parenthesis to distinctly separate the moments
Longing vs inability reality.
But the word was out. Some would never
False hope reality
EPANELEPSIS: Now the term has been coined, you can now relate,
helping?
fall in love had they not heard of love.
So the priest stood at the stile with his head
in his hands, crying at the workings of ANAPHORA: contrasted with anaphora of “wrong” – repetition
induces hope that things have stayed the same but “everything
memory changed” tragedy
through the colour of leaves, and the
schoolteacher
opened a book to the scent of her youth, too
late. ADVERB: “chiming” – focus on a specific moment, it’s the
It was Spring when one returned, with his life mediocre moments he wants to relive – addresses the importance
of living in the present as well as this issue of hedonic adaption,
in a sack on his back, to find the same street leaving us to yearn for the past.
with the same sign over the inn, the same
bell
chiming the hour on the clock, and
everything changed.
WAGOLL paragraph
, Captain of the Top of the Forth Team
Context: 20th century, allusions to the 1960s, part of a trivia
team
Themes: Aging, Nostalgia, Disappointment, identity
Structure: free verse
FC: 2nd stanza
Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Baby Love, Oh Pretty ALLUSION TRIPLET: knowledge and memory skills, Sensory imagery – the sound
Woman sufficing the phrase with this to demonstrate what
were in the Top Ten that month, October, and the is important to him of “bzz” is what stimulates his
Beatles memory.
were everywhere else. I can give you the B-side AUDITORY REFERENCES: to evoke memories of past
of the Supremes one. Hang on. Come See About era which proliferate into structure as it becomes
Me? FRAGMENTED CONVERSATIONAL:
I lived in a kind of fizzing hope. Gargling
with Vimto. The clever smell of my METAPHOR: beauty of childhood where the world is
satchel. Convent your oyster
girls.
I pulled my hair forward with a steel comb that I
PERSONIFICATION: pursuing this disjointed
blew structure of language and ideas within, could think
like Mick, my lips numb as a two-hour snog. liberally back then, links to adverb “fizzing”,
constant flow of energy
No snags. The Nile rises in April. Blue and white. Flow of success and ease, satisfaction of innocent
The humming-bird’s song is made by its wings, knowledge, he knows many trivia answers but isn’t
which possessed with adult world knowledge yet. Reality check
beat
so fast that they blur in flight. I knew the capitals, CAESURA: Quality of perfection we are made to
the Kings and Queens, the dates. In class, the deeply acknowledge and relish in as he wants to
white through his words.
sleeve
of my shirt saluted again and again. Sir! … PRESENT TENSE: specific facts, contrasts absolute
Correct. fixity of the poetic voice’s past self, stuck in the
Later, I whooped at the side of my bike, a past, with the rest of the world moving onwards,
cowboy, creating sense of duality between past and future
they are unsure how to feel or where they stand.
mounted it running in one jump. I sped down
Dyke
Hill, COLOUR COHESION: direct similarities between the
no hands, famous, learning, dominus domine colour of, The Nile as well as of the hummingbird.
dominum. This cohesion is then shown to leave and
figuratively “blur in flight”, via a…
ADVERB: literal blur of wings, offers the poetic
voice a future, reality check, confirmed to him by
the RHYME of, “White” and “flight”, to be
memorable and assertive.
Duffy uses rhyme to acknowledge the poetic
voice’s feeling of cohesion between their past ideas
and to emphasise the fact that they are now gone,
which develops their nostalgia around the whole
matter.
Confident and secure
Dave Dee Dozy … try me. Come on. My mother PHONETIC ALLITERATION RYHTYM: Very in tune with
kept his knowledge, flows from his tongue, makes him
my mascot Gonk confident – IMPERATIVE, cocky.
on the TV set for a year. And the photograph. I
look
TRIPLET DEFINITE ARTICLES: Important features
so brainy you’d think I’d just had a bath. The prevalent to him
blazer.
The badge. The tie. The first chord of A Hard
Day’s ALUSION: to an actual ‘hard day’s night’ –
juxtaposition between day + night, past and
Night
present
loud in my head. I ran to the Spinney in my prize
shoes,
up Churchill Way, up Nelson Drive, over pink Patriotic, patriarchal values
pavements
that girls chalked on, in a blue evening; and I
stamped
the pawprints of badgers and skunks in the
mud. My
country.
I want it back. The captain. The one with all DEFINITIE ARTICLE: Importance. Fulfilment as a
smart male leader
the
World changing around him
answers. Bzz.
ASSONANCE + SIMILE: emphasises JUXTAPOSITION
My name was in red on Lucille Green’s of youthful feelings, a boy may not be as much as a
jotter. I smiled threat as the girls, “stamped” adverb, power and
as wide as a child who went missing on the aggression, does he miss the past values? Novelty
way home of being a kid in general.
from school. The keeny. I say to my stale
wife
