1. Poetry Across Time: Character and Voice
Key
Language: connotation, imagery, metaphor, simile
Structure and Form: stanzas, type, patterns, contrast, juxtaposition
Poetic methods: alliteration, caesura, assonance, rhythm, rhyme
Character and Voice: Who is speaking and to whom? Tone of voice
Links: Comparisons to other speakers, methods and themes
Repetition with
repeated use of Brendon Gallacher is the speaking to an
contrast gives imaginary friend. He is seven years old.
Brendon Gallacher
the poem a
childlike quality, Highlighting
which is at odds He was seven and I was six, my Brendon Gallacher. the contrast
with the darker He was Irish and I was Scottish, my Brendon Gallacher. between the
theme two fathers.
His father was in prison; he was a cat burglar.
My father was a Communist Party full-time worker.
Colloquial He had six brothers and I had one, my Brendon Gallacher.
Scottish
Use of
creates He would hold my hand and take me by the river enjambment in
realism
where we’d talk all about his family being poor. the first and
He’d get his mum out of Glasgow when he got older. second line, link
Repetition of to rivers flowing
‘some place’ A wee holiday some place nice. Some place far.
invokes emotion of I’d tell my mum about my Brendon Gallacher.
reminiscence.
Repetition
How his mum drank and his daddy was a cat burglar.
And she’d say, ‘Why not have him round to dinner?’
Makes excuses No, no, I’d say, he’s got big holes in his trousers. Alliteration
as to why people I like meeting him by the burn in the open air. gives poem an
can’t meet Then one day after we’d been friends for two years, oral quality
Brendon.
one day when it was pouring and I was indoors, Long like rhymes
my mum says to me, ‘I was talking to Mrs Moir throughout the poem
and frequent use of
Impish: Inclined to
who lives next door to your Brendon Gallacher. Brendon Gallacher.
do slightly Didn’t you say his address was 24 Novar?
naughty things for She says there are no Gallachers at 24 Novar. Use of commas for
fun; like the
emphasis and effect
narrator.
There never have been any Gallachers next door.’ "flat on my bedroom
And he died then, my Brendon Gallacher, floor, his spiky hair.
flat out on my bedroom floor, his spiky hair,
his impish grin, his funny, flapping ear.
Oh Brendon. Oh my Brendon Gallacher.
Interpretations of the poem:
• One of the main themes is about belief.
• She believes in a fake invisible friend, and when reality invades she is forced to drop the
illusion. It's why she doesn't have him over for dinner. She can't prove he exists. It's a
game, and as she gets older she grows out of it