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READ THIS
The poet looks at the grim conditions prevailing at a primary school in a British slum. He calls on the
authorities to do something to lift these children from their situation of educational squalor to a world of
real literacy and learning.
ABOUT THE POET
Spender was born in London in 1909. His parents were both literary people, his father being a journalist
while his mother was a painter and a poet.
Theirs was middle class society and, typically for those days, they tended to despise the ways of the
working class. His parents' attitude would naturally influence the poet as a young boy -- hence the theme
of his poem "My parents kept me from children who were rough".
The poet initially attended Oxford University but did not finish his degree. Indeed, he later boasted about
the fact that he had never ever passed an exam in his whole life.
While he was at Oxford, however, he fell under the influence of the poet W.H. Auden with whom he did
some major collaboration. Later he would also pal up with both Louis MacNeice and Cecil Day-Lewis,
as well has many other rising English poets.
Instead of finishing his degree, Spender spent time in Germany where he studied some of the German
poets.
Germany during the 1920s was a hotbed of socialism and Spender became caught up in this political
movement -- becoming for a time an ardent admirer of communism itself.
The world in which he lived, however, quickly came to be dominated by a struggle between fascism and
communism, and Spender became involved in this clash of ideals. Indeed, he even launched himself into
the Spanish Civil War where he sided with the socialist forces opposed the fascist dictator, General
Franco.
Despite his lack of a degree, Spender's proven poetic track record allowed him to teach at various
American universities. In 1965 he was appointed "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry" to the
United States Library of Congress.
He would eventually return to England, however, where he took up a post as Professor of Rhetoric at
Gresham College and, later, Professor of English at the University College in London.
As early as 1962, Spender was awarded a C.B.E. and in 1983 he was honoured with a knighthood for his
poetry. He died in 1995 at the age of 86.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.
Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor."
The poet begins with two non-sentences, each of which is missing a verb. He also uses inverse word
order.
- Rewrite each sentence, using standard word-ordering and adding the verbs -- ensuring, of course,
that your sentences make clear the poet's meaning. (4)
[Need help?]
"The children's faces are far from the gusty waves."
"The torn hair round their faces is like rootless weeds."
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- Explain the link between the "children's faces" and the "gusty waves". (4)
[Need help?]
The children in the slum have never seen the sea, have never been on holiday. Traditionally, one views
children who have been on holiday to the coast, roaming the beaches and cliffs, as being suntanned and
healthy. Not only are these children not suntanned, but they also do not look at all healthy.
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- Why would the "torn hair" be compared to "rootless weeds"? (4)
[Need help?]
Their hair is unkempt and hanging in wisps any which way.
Weeds are plants which grow anywhere and anyway. They are plants which are considered worthless
and a nuisance in the garden. But the poet makes it worse: these weeds are even without roots.
Is the poet therefore hinting that the children's hair is falling out from poor nourishment, perhaps full of
lice? Certainly he is stating that their hair has broken ends as a result of never being cut.
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- Why does the poet use the word "pallor" instead of "faces" in "the hair torn around
their pallor"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet has, of course, already used the word "faces" in the previous line. He is therefore
avoiding repetition.
More than this, however, is the poet's painting a picture of their faces: pale and sickly ("pallor"),
not healthy looking faces at all.
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"The tall girl with her weighed-down head. The paper-
seeming boy, with rat's eyes. The stunted, unlucky heir
Of twisted bones, reciting a father's gnarled disease,
His lesson from his desk."
- Why would the tall girl have a "weighed-down head"? (4)
[Need help?]
Have you noticed how tall girls are often stooped, an attempt to compensate for their height by appearing
to be shorter than they really are?
In the wealthier schools of the poet's day, girls would have been taught deportment, how to walk upright
and to hold their heads up in pride. This, however, would not have happened in a slum school.
In this case, the poet is probably also hinting that the girl's head is weighed down with the troubles of life,
the lack of good food and the lack of a proper home life.
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- Why is the boy "paper-seeming", and why does he have "rat's eyes"? (4)
[Need help?]
The "paper-seeming" tells us that the boy's face is white like paper. He does not have a healthy
complexion but looks sickly. Paper also gives us the idea of the skin being thin and perhaps translucent,
again pointing to the boy looking sickly.
The "rat's eyes" could perhaps tell us that the boy's eyes are small, beady and furtive. It could also
indicate that his eyes are red, either from rubbing them too much (why would he be doing this?) or
perhaps from crying.
Can you think of any other reason?
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- Comment on the bitter irony of the boy "reciting a father's gnarled disease". (4)
[Need help?]
The boy should be reciting his work, reciting his sums or his poetry. Instead he suffers from some
dreadful hereditary disease which has been passed onto him by his father.
Because it's a hereditary disease, it means that he too will in time pass it on to his own children. He is
therefore "reciting" the disease: it is being repeated over and over with each successive
generation.
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"At back of the dim class
One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,
Of squirrel's game, in the tree room, other than this."
- What is the difference between this boy and the children in his class? (4)
[Need help?]
The other children are all pale and sickly but this boy is different. He appears young and alive,
enthusiastic. Education means something to him. He is able to dream of things other than the slum.
What he reads in his books becomes part of his imagination.
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