For my Grandmother Knitting by Liz Lochhead

For my Grandmother Knitting

 by Liz Lochhead

Poem Analysis:

This 5 stanza poem, written by Liz Lochhead, re  presents the life of an old lady, going in chronological order from when she was young. However, unequal lengths in the lines don’t relate to the meaning of the poem, which is how the elderly is treated in the society along with some deeply personal details. There are many themes related to this poem such as: Self-perception, generation gap, misunderstandings.

 Many points in the poem helps us understand her feelings, and sometimes her family’s too, which encourages us to feel for the grandmother. The line “There is no use they say”, this shows that the uselessness of the grandmother keeps increasing and the word ‘they’ gets us to sense the distant relationship between the family members.

In stanza one she is reminded of the fisher girl she used to be, and how her hands still work in the same rhythm. Second stanza opens with words such as “old now” and “grasp of things not so good” shows the aging of grandmother. The other lines of the stanza further elaborate on her hands when they were young, how they were “master of your moments”, “Deft and swift”. In line 12, “you slit the still-ticking quicksilver fish.” the poet has used alliteration to show how strong the old lady’s had was in her youth.

Stanza 3 is dedicated to the time the old lady was a young housewife. It looks into the details of what she used her fresh hands for, like : “hands of the mother of six who made do and mended scraped and slaved slapped sometimes when necessary.” In stanza number four, the poet writes what the grandchildren says to their granny, that “they say grandma have too much already”. However the poet also shows that the grandma doesn’t only knit for the children, but also because the knitting reminds her of the sweet moments of her past.

In the last stanza, the poet further defines the hands as “Swollen-jointed. Red. Arthritic. Old.” using small, bitter words to make the reader wonder about the pain of aging. There is a repetition of phrases from the first stanza, “but the needles still move their rhythms in the working of your hands as easily as if your hands”. The poem is concluded by saying that the constant movement of her hands haven’t altered.

Research Content:

Elizabeth Anne Lochhead was born on 1947 December 26^th to John and Margaret Lochhead, in Motherwell, Lanarkshire. She went to Dalziel High School and at the age of 15, she decided on going to art school, however many teachers wanted her to go by the Literature path. In 1965, after entering Glasglow School of Art, she wrote her first poem, “the Visit”. She also joined a writing group run by Stephen Mulrine. On 1970, after graduating from the art school, she went for a few writers’ workshops. On the following year she won a Radio Scotland poetry competition. After reading with Norman MacCaig at a poetry festival, her first collection was published by Gordon Wright, ‘Memo for Spring’. Her second collection received the Scottish Arts Council Book award. Liz has met many famous poets and has stood out to be a very inspiring woman. Liz took her first step towards drama on 1978.

While teaching art in secondary schools, she released her second collection, Islands, and was awarded the first Scottish/ Canadian writers’ Exchange Fellowship, both in the same year. Due to the award, she became a full-time writer, poet, and performer. She performed in ‘Blood and Ice’ on 1982; ‘Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off’ on 1989 and many more majestic plays. On 1985, she translated and adapted ‘Tartuffe’, into Scots. She also worked for the television are: ‘Latin for a Dark Room’ & ‘the story of Frankenstein’. Her poems written from 1984-2003, were published in 2003 as her collection, ‘The colour of black & white’. On 2006, ‘Good things’, which was a romantic comedy for stage was released.

She was awarded an honorary degree by University of Edinburgh in 2000 and on 2005 she was made Poet Laureate of Glasglow. In 2011 she became the Scots Marker, and her book: ‘A choosing: The selected poetry of Liz Lochhead’, was released in the same year.