Transcript Song for Last Year*s Wife

Song for Last Year’s Wife
By Brian Patten
LO: To evaluate how Patten uses language,
viewpoint and comparison to convey a sense
of loss.
Song suggests
jovial however very
sombre mood.
Suggests loss.
Song for Last
Year’s Wife
Describes the
relationship that the
speaker is mourning.
Use of direct address to his
wife. Also significant use of
personal pronouns such as you
and our to show his thoughts of
his wife and their relationship.
Alice, this is my first winter
of waking without you, of knowing
that you, dressed in familiar clothes
are elsewhere, perhaps not even
conscious of our anniversary.
Use of alliteration to
suggest loss.
The speaker is still aware of
her presence, even though
she is not physically there.
He feels as though she has
forgotten him and
everything that their
relationship was symbolic
of.
Rhetorical question.
She cannot answer.
conscious of our anniversary. Have
you noticed? The earth’s still as hard,
the same empty gardens exist; it is
Lonely imagery is being
as if nothing special had changed, conveyed through words
Gardens are normally characterised
as quite fertile and a place for
growing. Any empty garden is an
unusual image and could be seen as
an oxymoron because of the
contrast.
like hard and empty. Like
what the speaker’s world
has become. He feels
like nothing in the world
has really changed. But it
is clear by the speaker’s
language choices that his
world has changed
significantly.
Metaphor. He is kissing a
new lover.
I wake with another mouth feeding
from me, yet still feel as if
Love had not the right
to walk out of me.
Gives the audience a sense
of anger that the speaker
has over his wife deserting
him.
Capitalisation of ‘Love’ characterises
the emotion and shows its
importance to the speaker.
Short sentences
covey the
speaker’s anger.
woman is not actually
to walk out of me. A year now. So The
responding. He is placing
in her mouth,
what? you say. I send out my spies words
imagining her response.
to discover what you are doing. They smile,
return, tell me your body’s as firm, He wants to know
Focus is on the physical
aspects of Alice.
Triple. Actions the friends
take.
how she is and what
she is doing. He
could possibly be
obsessed with this
idea since he uses
the word ‘spies’
rather than friends.
Triple. Focus on her
physical aspects
again.
you are as alive, as warm and inviting Use of ellipsis suggests
a past memory.
as when they knew you first… Perhaps it is
the winter, its isolation from other seasons,
Personification of
that sends me your ghost to witness winter. Again the
Suggests that she had
changed during their
relationship and was
not as happy as she is
now.
word isolation
suggests loneliness.
Imagery of death and loss. The
memories of her are haunting
him.
Alliteration
when I wake. Somebody came here today, asked
He cannot answer, therefore he
how you were keeping, what must imagine.
you were doing. I imagine you, The speaker still thinks of her.
waking in another city, touched Use of the word touch is
both literal and
metaphorical. This is
used throughout. The
feeling of being touched
and being touched with
emotion.
by this same hour. So ordinary
A thing as loss comes now and touches me.
Feels a sense of loss and grief at
the end of the poem.
Touches him
emotionally.
Structure and Language
• No specific rhyme or rhythm, but the theme
of grief is typical of songs.
• The poem has an elegiac (sad) quality because
the language deals with mourning and
irrecoverable loss. It is almost as if it is a
lament which is a song or poem expressing
mourning.
• Much of the language used expresses anger
and loneliness.
Extend
• Ask students to write two paragraphs in response to
the following question: How does Patten use language,
viewpoint, and comparison to convey a sense of loss?
What does the poem tell us about relationships?
Exploring language:
• Discuss the sympathetic view of the persona that
students have probably developed so far.
• Ask the students, working in pairs, to find phrases that
suggest the persona is a less sympathetic character,
such as the title, ‘Song for Last Year’s Wife’, and to
discuss the extent to which this alters their thoughts
about the poem.
• Take feedback from the pairs. Have these lines changed
students’ attitudes towards the persona?
Plenary
You should have:
• Understood how Patten has used language to
convey the theme of grief and loss.
• Written a complete paragraph analysing the
various components of the poem.
• Evaluated the analysis and determined where
improvements are needed.