A Photograph – Shirley Toulson

The poem reflects on the poet’s mother and the passage of time.
It begins with a description of a childhood photograph of her mother, standing with her cousins on a beach, paddling in the water.
The mother was around twelve years old then.
The poet highlights how the mother, when she grew older, would look at the picture and recall those happy moments with a smile, but also with a sense of loss and nostalgia.
Now, the mother has passed away, and the poet herself looks at the same picture.
For the poet, the photograph becomes a symbol of grief, silence, and the inevitability of death.
The poem contrasts childhood innocence, adulthood reflection, and the final silence of death.

Transience of life – Human life is short and fragile compared to the permanence of a photograph.
Loss and grief – The poet mourns her mother’s death, highlighting how memories live on.
Time and change – The three stages: the mother’s childhood, her adult reflections, and the poet’s present grief.
Immortality of memories – Though people die, photographs preserve moments forever.

“The cardboard shows me how it was…”
– The photograph is mounted on cardboard, holding an image from the past.
“…her sweet face, her smile, her hair flying about in the sea breeze.”
– The innocence of childhood is captured.
“Some twenty-odd years later she’d laugh at the snapshot.”
– The mother would recall her childhood with humour and nostalgia.
“Now she’s been dead nearly as many years as that girl lived.”
– Time has passed, and her death equals her age in the photograph.
“And of this circumstance there is nothing to say at all. Its silence silences.”
– The poet accepts death as inevitable, leaving her speechless in grief.

Imagery – Visual description of the photograph, the beach, hair flying, etc.
Alliteration – “Her hair,” “silence silences.”
Personification – The photograph seems to “speak” silently about the past.
Irony – The mother laughed at her loss (childhood), and now the poet grieves her mother’s loss (life).
Contrast – Past joy vs. present grief.

A Photograph – Shirley Toulson- class 11