Academic Year (Session): 2024-2025
Subject: Literature in English (2010)
Topic: Poetry
Sub-Topic: From Long Distance (Poem)
Class: 10
Text Biography of the Poet
Poem: From Long Distance Tony Harrison (born April 30, 1937) is an English
By: Tony Harrison poet. He was born in Leeds and educated at Leeds
Grammar School and the University of Leeds; where
Though my mother was already two years dead he read Classics and took a diploma in Linguistics,
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas, which undoubtedly had an impact on his works. For
put hot water bottles her side of the bed some years he has lived in Gosforth, Newcastle upon
and still went to renew her transport pass. Tyne. In 2004 he was the third winner of the Northern
Rock Foundation Writer's Award.
You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone. The material of much of his poetry is provided by the
He'd put you off an hour to give him time memories of his working-class childhood. The
to clear away her things and look alone separation he feels from parents as a result of this is a
as though his still raw love were such a crime. critical idea expressed in the poem. His poems and
translations show a powerful command of rhyme and
He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief an expert adaptation of colloquial speech.
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.
I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.
VOCABULARY— WORD MEANINGS:
1. Scrape: drag or pull a hard or sharp implement across (a surface or object) so as to remove dirt or other matter.
STRUCTURE & FORM OF THE POEM:
➢ The poem comprises of 16 lines ordered into 4 quatrains
➢ Has an ABAB CDCD EFEF ABBA rhyme scheme
➢ Follows the outline of an elegy.
SUMMARY OF THE POEM:
In the poem “From Long Distance” the speaker remarks how his father has kept the habit of preparing things
around the house for his mother, believing that she will eventually return, even though she has been dead for
several years.
The speaker goes on to explain that his father is ashamed of his behavior (or is at least aware of the fact that not
everyone would understand it) and demands an hour of preparation before he lets anyone visit the house. While
the speaker is not judging his father’s way of grieving, he understands that his own firm realism would make it
difficult for his father to keep the illusion alive.
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In the last stanza however, the speaker admits to an unnamed addressee that he has carried their phone number
over into his new phone book and keeps calling even though that person has either left the speaker or is dead
themselves, thus confesses to dealing with this loss in a similar way that his father is with his.
ANALYSIS OF THE POEM:
The title ‘Long Distance’ suggests the poem’s theme; that of the sense of separation the poet feels on the death of
his parents and the way in which he copes with their death.
The poem begins in a reminiscent tone portrayed by language such as “Though my mother was already two years
dead”.
The second line continues this mood and introduces the character of the poet’s Dad.
The remainder of the first stanza provides several aspects of his father’s inability to take in his wife’s death - he still
warms her slippers by the fire, he puts hot water bottles in the bed for her, he renews her transport pass.
In the second stanza Harrison personally addresses the reader. The effect of the use of ‘You, I, he, she’ is to create
an intensely personal tone to the poem and emotionally connect the reader.
Harrison also does this to present his own recollections of how his father would act out a charade- ‘He’d put you off
an hour to give him time to clear away her things and look alone’.
Despite this seeming absurd at one level, the poet has the greatest sympathy for his father’s suffering, ‘as though
his still raw love were such a crime’.
It is important that the father pretends to his son that he has come to terms with his wife’s passing and reveals a
great deal about their relationship. Certainly there was a “long distance” between them emotionally, in some
respects, making personal grief something to hide away beneath the surface (“He couldn’t risk my blight of
disbelief”)
This also means that the father couldn’t risk letting Harrison comprehend just how much he was suffering as this
would lead him to having to face his feelings- something which he may not have had the courage to do.
The rest of the third stanza deals with Harrison’s commentary on his father’s desperation and frustration (“though
sure that very soon he’d hear her key scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief”) The “knew” is in italics to
emphasise this idea as it slows down the reader and allows the eyes to distinguish between that particular word
and the rest of the poem.
The last stanza, in which the poet describes his own attempts at moving on has a disrupted rhyme scheme of ABBA.
Incidentally, ABBA is the Jewish word for father, showing that the father’s death has been preying on the poet's
mind, even though he claims to believe "that life ends with death, and that is all".
ELEGY:
The term "elegy" was originally used for a poem of mourning, from the Greek word ‘elegos’, a reflection on the
death of someone or on a sorrow generally - which is a form of lyric poetry. An elegy can also reflect on something
which seems strange or mysterious to the author.
People often describe an elegy as a lengthened epitaph.
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The elements of a traditional elegy mirror three stages of loss. First, there is a lament, where the speaker expresses
grief and sorrow, then praise and admiration of the idealized dead and those grieving, and finally consolation and
solace. These three stages can be seen to some extent in “From Long Distance”
First Stage:
Harrison follows the general outline of an elegy in the first stanza as it represents the first stage of loss. It portrays
the father’s grief and sorrow by giving examples of meaningless tasks he performs in order to keep her memory
alive. By doing this he creates a mask behind which he can hide so that he does not have to face his true feelings.
Second Stage:
Harrison mirrors the second stage of loss (i.e. praise and admiration) in the second and third stanzas. Harrison
conveys his admiration of the “raw love” which his parents shared and is almost ashamed at the same time as his
relationship with his father which was very “long distance”.
Final Stage:
The third and final stage of loss is the final stage of an elegy which should be consolation and solace, some sort of
comfort for the reader. However Harrison instead uses irony in the sense that he explains how he himself is unable
to comprehend his father’s death (and his mother’s) (e.g. “the disconnected number I still call”) something which
he criticised his father for earlier on in the poem.
He does this to emphasise to the reader the consequences of the broken relationship with his father, something
which he cannot mend as his father has passed on, and instead he is left with guilt.
Harrison in a sense wastes precious words describing his “new black leather phone book” in the last stanza which
echoes the time he wasted in his lifetime instead of developing his relationship with his father, and is a message for
the reader to not do the same.
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QUESTION:
HW 1: Compare the speaker’s reaction to the death of his father with his father’s reaction to the death of his
mother. Do we know how the speaker felt after his mother died?
HW 2: What ideas do you feel that Harrison is considering in this poem? Why do you think he called it ‘Long
Distance’?
[Word Limit: 400—500];
