Comparing Catrin and Baby-sitting both by Gillian Clarke By Simone, Tom, Abby and Adam

Meaning of Catrin and Baby-sitting Catrin is about a personal experience of Gillain Clarke and her daughter, and how the relationship changed between them when her daughter grew up. Baby-sitting: Baby-sitting is also a personal experience of Gillian Clarke. However this experience shows how she feels stuck because she has no maternal feelings towards the baby she is looking after.

Similarities Both poems are personal experiences of Gillian Clarke, and both experiences between an adult and a child. Structure wise, both poems are set into two stanzas. In Baby-sitting with first stanza is about the baby in Gillians eyes, and the second stanza is about Gillian in the baby’s eyes. Whereas in Catrin, the first stanza is about Gillian giving birth to her daughter and the second stanza is about her daughter growing up and wanting freedom. Both poems are about the bond between Gillian and a child, with the bond between them in each poem being wrought with difficulties.

Both poems use metaphors but in different ways Both poems use metaphors but in different ways. In Catrin the metaphor ‘red rope of love’, is used to describe the umbilical cord which shows the bond between the mother and daughter. However, in Baby-sitting Gillian uses ‘For her it will be worse, Than for the lover cold in lonely’ which shows the separation between mother and child. Also, in both poems enjambment is used to create emphasis on particular words that are related to the meaning of the poem. In Catrin it says ‘which we both fought over’ this shows the battle between the mother and daughter which has started since the birth of her daughter and how it has continued through to the daughters teenage years. In Baby-sitting it says ‘To her I will represent absolute Abandonment’. The word ‘abandonment’ is carried onto the next line which creates this emphasis on the word, which shows what the baby feels as it is not with its parents.

In each of these poems they use pronouns, however one is to emphasise the separation between the babysitter and the baby, where as in the other poem it is to emphasise the connection between the mother and daughter and to show the difficultly for the mother to give her daughter a bit of freedom because she doesn’t want to let go.

Differences The main and obvious difference between these two poems is that in Catrin, the child talked about is actually Gillian Clarkes, whereas in Babysitting, the baby is not hers. The bond between the two people in both poems is another main difference, in Catrin Gillian is struggling to keep a bond between her and her daughter and her daughter is fighting for independence and freedom. This contrasts with Babysitting because the two people don’t have any bond and this is why they are finding it hard. In Catrin the only point of view seen is Gillian’s, but in Babysitting both Gillian and the baby have a time to say what they feel.