Material - Ros Barber

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Material - Ros Barber

'Material' begins with a reflection on the coth handkerchiefs used by the poet's mother. barber associates these handkerchiefs initially with her own childhood, before changing the focus to the wider consideration of a vanished way of life associated with her mother's generation. The poet contrasts the way she brings up her children without the way her mother raised her. The poem concludes with Barber acknowledging that the modern ay of living and parenting in her own 'material' to work with as best she can.

Commentary- Barber begins with the object of the handkerchief, and uses it to explore a range of different ideas and experiences. The poem's cheif concerns are with lost history and the changing way in which mothers bring up their children.

Barber correlates the disappearance of the handkerchief with a vanished world of department stores and headscarves. All are lost because 'those who used to buy them died'. Barber especially evokes this disappeared world in the concise character sketches in the fifth octave. This suggests a familiar, close-knit and supportive community of friends, family and neighbours. On the surface, Barber is mourning this lost way of life, with its 'soft and hidden history'. However, she avoids falling into the cliched trap of arguing simply that everything was better in the past. Indeed, she even acknowledges that 'Nostalgia only makes me old' Note the figurative and frightening 'painted talons' Mrs White or the rather deadened uniformity in her repeated instruction 'step- together, step-together, step-together'. Barber also remembers thinking handkerchiefs were the 'naffest Christmas gift you'd get and an embarrassment of lace'

The handkerchief is also closely associated with the poet's mother. The clear and direct opening line immediately establishes this as she if figuratively described as 'the hanky queen'. Barber presents her as loving and attentive; she would have a handkerchief, 'always, up her sleeve' to scrub against her face, or 'smudge the rouge'. Her gentle fondness for her mother is also reinforced in the humorous image of the hankies falling in love and mating, 'raising little squares'.

This contrast with Barber's depiction of her methods of parenting represented by the'scratchy and disposable' tissue bought from 'late-night garages and shops' She lets her children watch television to give her time to work and she never wipes their noses. She even admits, in a self-critical rhetorical question in the eighth octave, to never having any tissues in her bag, let alone handkerchiefs. but there is more to it than a merely perceived shortcoming in her character. The key line, reinforced by a rare instance of caesura, is at the beginning of the final octave: 'But it isn't mine. I'll let it go'

'it', here in the past and her mothers ay of bringing up her children. Barber recognises that the role of a mother has changed by the end of the 20th century: Barber works and she must balance these demands with childcare. At the end of the poem, she imagines fondly her mother giving this advice: the paper tissues - modern motherhood, with all its pressures - are the only 'material' she has to work with.

'Material' is written in octaves with largely ABCBDEFE rhyme (or half-rhyme) scheme. many lines are in iambic tetrameter such as the opening three lines in the poem:

"My mother was the hanky queen

when hanky meant a thing of cloth,

not paper tissues bought in packs"

Each stanza also ends with a fulls stop and is a statement of a separate, self- contained reflection r memory. A regular form such as this is associated with older, more traditional poetry, and so evokes the lost world being described, as well as recalling its restrictions

Rhyming connects words- there are rhymes in this poem which draws attention to contrast, such as 'wool' and 'malls' or perhaps, 'brood' and 'lassitude'. They might connect in other ways, such as 'purified' and 'died', or the particularly noteworthy final rhyme - 'disposable', 'material' and 'will' - three words which could be said to sum up the key ideas in the poem. Rhyme also underscores the often humorous tone: 'not' and 'snot' being a particularly pathetic example.