My Favourite Poem

My Favourite Poem is Mid Term Break by Seamus Heaney.

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying -
He had always taken funerals in his stride
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed our angry tearless signs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
Withe the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Reflections
This poem is about the death of a sibling, something which I have not experienced. It allows me to understand what it feels like to have a sibling dying and cherish my siblings more. I think Mid Term Break is a very good and realistic poem.

This poem retells an event which left a lasting impression on the poet; the death of his brother when he was fourteen. He retells it in such a way that expressed the detachment and confusion tthat he feels.

While his parents are sad and angry, and the baby, probably his other sibling, is clueless about what is happening, the persona is caught in the middle, neither too young to understand nor old enough to understand enough. We can see his confusion in the fact that he refers to his relatives as "old men" and "strangers".

Poem Analysis

• The usage of enjambment helps invoke a lack of control in the persona, probably distraught and confused over his sibling's death
• Creating the mood also helped, with the bells "knelling" classes to a close, creates a sad mood to the poem.
• The neighbours driving the persona home also leads the reader to thinking why are they doing so instead of the parents.
• The usage of extra details, in the fact the the father "had always taken funerals in his stride", him crying shows that it was a great blow.
• Personification: "Whispers informed the strangers that I was the eldest", "Snowdrops and candles soothed the bedside"
• The contrast, as mentioned earlier also helps with describing the emotions of the persona. The mother and father are sad and angry, the baby is clueless, while the persona is stuck in the middle of both age groups, confused.
• There is no clear rhyme scheme throughout the poem, except the last two lines, to show that the persona has cleared his head and has calmed down. It also gives the poem a complete ending.