(a) In what ways and with what effects does Kay present familial relationships in her poems?

In
your answer, you should refer in detail to three poems in your selection.

Jackie Kay’s poem are well-known to centralise a number of themes, one of them being
familial relationships. I am choosing the poems From ‘Stranraer, South’, ‘He Told Us He Wanted A
Black Coffin’, and ‘Dressing Up’ to demonstrate how Kay uses various methods to convey the theme
of familial relationships in her poems as well as the effects it brings.

First of all, in the poem ‘From Stranraer, South’, Kay utilises devices in structure and
language to convey the ill relationship between the persona and her mother. One of the structural
devices is short sentences such as “and never got better” which are placed at the end of every
stanza, creating a prominent amount of negative space. This blank space resembles the wedge
between the mother and daughter as they are emotionally distant from each other—a result of her
mother’s homophobia which was, and still is, common in families of today’s society. The use of
enjambments also contribute to conveying this theme. The enjambment in “My mother wouldn’t
open her mouth — / and never got better” elongates the sentence in order to reflect the period of
time the persona had been receiving her mother’s silent treatment, signifying the mother’s refusal
to forgive and accept her daughter’s homosexuality. Despite this, the persona accepts the fact that
their relationship will only ever be one-sided, and this is conveyed through the enjambment in “what
is a life for but to be a good daughter/and love your mother’s weakness”. Kay also uses a handful of
language devices to deliver the theme of familial ties. For instance, the repetition of “my mother”
throughout the poem shows how close the persona feels to her mother, but the poem never implies
the same vice versa, suggesting that the relationship is one-sided due to the mother’s homophobia
and unaccepting attitude. Some diction should also be noted such as the phrase “a certain
expression of satisfaction”. This phrase shows the persona’s inability to understand her own
perception of her mother. The uncertainty she experiences is a result of the passive aggression and
silent gaslighting received from her mother, further drawing attention to the mother’s psychological
abuse. Kay then uses polysyndeton (“and love…and moisten/and listen…/and see…”) to show the
insufferableness and endlessness of the persona’s responsibility of serving her mother for a wrong
she should not be held accountable for. By now, readers are bound to feel the weight of the
persona’s circumstances and heavily sympathise with her, especially those from the LGBTQ+
community. Another example of a language device is metaphor in “smiling my mother’s smile”. It
shows how the persona is starting to feel like an extension of her mother because of her actions
which constantly revolve around her. The burden she carries because of her mother can also be seen
conveyed via the use of transitive verbs: “carry”, “Tilt”, “lift”, “dab”, “bring”, “stroke”. These verbs
show the helplessness of the mother to the extent where she needs the persona to physically
control her, but it contradicts with the fact that it is in fact the mother who is emotionally and
mentally controlling the persona. All in all, this poem contains a good amount of structural and
language devices to convey the theme of familial relationships.

Secondly, in ‘He Told Us He Wanted a Black Coffin’, structure and language too are used to
convey the theme of healthy and close familial relationships between the persona and her son. In
terms of structure, we can take note of the short sentences accompanied by a period: “It looked
smashing.”, “None but Derek’s flowers.”, which can be read as the persona being straightforward
and speaking from the heart, as a means to say that she has nothing to hide or feel ashamed of
because of her son’s queerness. This already goes to show the acceptance a mother bears for her
queer child—a not-so-common attribute for parents of LGBTQ+ children. Next, if we observe the
punctuation marks in the lines “…and put it in mine;” and “…that wall in Greig Street;”, we can infer
the semicolons to resemble the ache the persona feels when her son physically and socially suffers.
As a mother feels the pain her son feels, we can deduce the emotional closeness of their
relationship. This deduction can also be made through the use of parentheses in “(who’ll laugh
now?)” as it resembles the son exiting the mother’s life, and also emphasises the mother’s grief from
it. Readers—especially those who have lost a loved one—may strongly empathise with the persona
at this point as it is a common experience shared by many people regardless of age, gender and race.
As for language, a notable device used is the kind of diction which involves the mentioning of specific
places and people such as “Mrs Calder”, “Derek”, “Gavin”, “Greig Street”, and “Aberdeen” which
signify how the mother is attentive of her son’s life details. This in turn reflects her great care for him
and their close relationship. We can also take note of the despondent and mundane imagery
provided by the lines “an ordinary pine one” and “a single bunch of white lilies” as they show the
persona feeling inadequate as she cannot afford what she thinks is best for her son. We see her self-
reproaching for not being and doing enough for her dying child. Another way Kay projects the
mother’s self-reproach is the use of past tense verbs like “I wanted”, “I swore” and “I knew”, which
shows her constant reminiscence of her son’s unhappy childhood, whereby she wishes she could
have turned it around and this highlights how dear the son is to his mother. Their healthy bond is
also depicted through possessive pronouns: “his hand in mine”, “his thumb tap tapping my palm”.
These display their two-way relationship, implying the healthy mother-son bond readers would be
deeply touched by. In addition to that, a noteworthy shift to present tense in the final stanza
suggests that the mother will always see her son as a little boy, implying her undying love and
affection for him. This is evident in lines such as “The boy careening” and “scarf flying”. To sum it up,
Kay clearly portrays the healthy bond between mother and son in this poem via structure and
language.

Lastly, Kay uses structure, language and tone in ‘Dressing Up’ to depict yet another abusive
family dynamic. For starters, the enjambment in “I’m trying to put it behind/me” already shows the
persona wanting to separate himself from his family members—something one would definitely not
do in a healthy family. This is again pictured through the end stopped line, “Da beats Ma drinks it
off./I couldn’t…”, whereby the persona excludes himself from his family’s narrative of domestic and
alcohol abuse. Next, the caesura such as in “I told ma ma years ago. She’d” shows the persona
distinguishing between his and his mother’s actions, as a means to say he refuses to relate himself to
his own mother in any way. By this point, readers may already have a clear picture of an abusive and
toxic household painted in their minds, which could result in them heavily sympathising with the
persona or even relate to him if they come from a similar household. This shared hurt becomes
more encompassing when we take into account the number of lines and stanzas. There are 5 stanzas
of 5 lines each. The odd numbers reflect the persona’s sense of disbelonging in their own family—
being the ‘odd one out’—but the consistency of the number of lines throughout the poem and the
way the number of stanzas match the number of lines suggests that no matter how much the
persona wants to leave, the inescapability of the familial relation he has with his parents chains him
down. We see how desperate the persona is to leave his family, and we can see exactly why he
wants to do so through the disorderly imagery Kay uses to describe the household: “squalid”, “Da
beats Ma Drinks it off.”, “I couldn’t stomach it, banging/doors”. Such imagery can conjure horrific
scenarios in readers’ heads, making them empathise with the persona through an almost lifelike
walkthrough of his life at home. Surely, by living in such conditions, a child growing up is at high risk
of enduring a load of trauma, and Kay conveys this through childish diction: “Ma ma always dresses
boring”, or the way the persona addresses his father as “Da”. This suggests that the persona’s child
self never recovered from the trauma they endured, and can be read as the persona’s inability to
grow in a toxic family. The abusiveness of the persona’s household is solidified by the tones this
poem contains. For instance, the claustrophobic and chaotic tone in “I couldn’t stomach it,
banging/doors, turning ma music up top/blast.” conjures audible imagery of a house fight and the
need to drown in out. Other than that, the tense tone in “She wasn’t joking either.” evokes the
tension between mother and child—a common feeling in toxic households, whereby the child feels
like they must tread on eggshells around their parents. Conclusively, Kay precisely depicts the
struggles and trauma of living in an abusive family in this poem through language, structure and
tone.
 In conclusion, Kay’s poems that touch on the theme of familial relationships integrate a
range of devices in order to fully and clearly convey said theme to readers. Hence, deriving emotions
and reactions of all sorts from various groups of people. It is undeniable that when it comes to
depicting family ties, Kay does a wonderful job at it through the methods used in her craft.