| Question | Answer |
| I’d bear the newspaper twists
bulging fat with winkles
proudly home, like torches. | The final striking simile suggests the child's victory and sense of achievement as she has successfully completed the epic quest of "buying winkles" - Winkles |
| In her heart-warming and tender poem, "Buying Winkles", Meehan recalls the excitement and anticipation of being sent on an errand to buy winkles. The poem beautifully evokes 1960s Dublin | Topic Sentence - Winkles |
| We'd grow solemn as planets
in an intricate orbit about her. | Memorable simile of the children circling around their mother - she was clearly a key figure in their lives - Pattern |
| Paula Meehan wrote this shocking, powerful dramatic monologue in response to the tragic death of 15 year-old Ann Lovett, who died after giving birth to her baby at the grotto in Granard, Co. Longford | Topic Sentence - Statue |
| I would break loose of my stony robes,
pure blue, pure white, as if they had robbed
a child’s sky for their colour. | Stony robes - repression of sexuality
A symbol of a stifled and stultifying religion - assonance emphasises the despair |
| Little has come down to me of hers,
a sewing machine, a wedding band,
a clutch of photos, the sting of her hand
across my face in one of our wars | Meehan is candid and honest in these stark opening lines - Pattern |
| I wore that dress
with little grace. To me it spelt poverty,
the stigma of the second hand. | Meehan's working class origins are addressed here- the repeated "s" sound reinforces her shame, it is as though she is spitting out all the words |
| The howling won’t let up. Trees
cavort in agony as if they would be free
and take off — ghost voyagers | Disturbing and unsettling imagery of the trees writhing and struggling to break free of their rooted shackles - the soil of Ireland stifles and stultifies - Virgin |
| the winkles
would be wet and glisten blue like little
night skies themselves. | The child imagines the wonder and mystery of the winkles - lovely sense of anticipation in these evocative lines - use of tactile and visual imagery - use of colour and a striking simile - Winkles |
| centre of our foolish dance,
burning heart of stone,
molten mother of us all,
hear me and have pity. | Ironically the statue does not call on a catholic god but on the pagan sun god - Virgin |
| It can be bitter here at times like this,
November wind sweeping across the border. | The poem opens with a dark, freezing November night, symbolic of a cruel, harsh Ireland - Virgin |
| They kneel before me and their prayers
fly up like sparks from a bonfire
that blaze a moment, then wink out. | Prayers are futile and ineffectual - Mary's role is just symbolic - she is unable to act - Virgin |
| ‘Tell yer Ma I picked them fresh this morning.’ | Colloquial language brings the voices of 1960s inner city Dublin to life |
| the Liffey for hours pulsing to the sea
and the coming and going of ships,
certain that one day it would carry me
to Zanzibar, Bombay, the Land of the Ethiops. | The verb suggests the vibrant and colourful life that lay beyond Dublin - stark contrast tween the exotic world of Zanzibar and Bombay to the cramped world of the flat she grew up in |
| This poem provides us with a series of snapshots detailing the fractured relationship between the poet and her mother, as well as exploring the pressing social issues of the time. | Topic Sentence - Pattern |
| He shoved my whole head
under the kitchen tap, took a scrubbing brush
and carbolic soap and in ice-cold water he scrubbed
every spick of lipstick and mascara off my face. | The short vowel sounds i.e. assonance emphasise the violence
Woman repressed in patriarchal society - Pattern |
| They call me Mary - Blessed, Holy, Virgin.
They fit me to a myth of a man crucified: | The statue does not relish her role - various titles have been thrust upon her - she has been used and abused by people who have shaped their own idea of the statue to fit their own understanding of religion - Virgin |
| My mother would spare me sixpence and say,
‘Hurry up now and don’t be talking to strange
men on the way.’ | We are immediately catapulted into the action - the direct speech lends the poem a sense of urgency - Winkles |
| I’d wave up to women at sills or those
lingering in doorways and weave a glad path through
men heading out for the night. | Enjambment increases the pace of the poem - sense of anticipation and excitement. Also, assonance - long vowel sounds slow down our reading of the poem - Winkles |
| Tongues of flame in her dark eye
she'd say, ‘One of these days I must
teach you to follow a pattern.’ | Why not now? Perhaps the mother realises that she needs to let her daughter follow her dreams not someone else's pattern - Pattern |
