Half Past Two

U.A.Fanthorpe

“Half Past Two” Overview

In this poem, a young boy is held in detention by his teacher – who then forgets about him. As he waits for her to return, he effectively day-dreams. His thoughts are out-of-time, both the time of his teacher and the compound, non-numerical time of other adults in his world. He goes into ‘clockless land of ever’ through the silent act of playing with his hang-nail and the smell of the flowers on his teachers desk.

U.A. Fanthorpe (1929 - 2009)

English teacher and later administrative clerk in a mental health centre. In 2001 she was made CBE for services to poetry. She was also awarded the 2003 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

Comparisons

Other poems in the anthology on the themes of childhood:

If

Prayer Before Birth

Piano

Hide and Seek

Key Points

Narrative poem

Free verse

11 stanzas of three lines

Progressive sense of understanding for reader (though you do have to move backwards and forwards through time of poem).

First person narrator: “I”

Personal thoughts presented in (parenthesis) as asides: (I forget what it was). This creates impression speaker is addressing us and emphasises that time has passed since situation took place.

Capital letters

Teacher is presented with capital S, while boy has lower case ‘h’... until line 25, when the speaker (and so the boy) reduce her to a ‘scuttling creature’ that apologises for making the boy late.

Something Very Wrong – note how the capitals suggest we can hear the teacher’s voice, strong and stern – and so the speaker is caught up in playing the parts both of the boy and his teacher. The juxtaposition of ‘Something Very Wrong’ with the speaker’s aside ((I forget what was) reduces the importance of these words, and thus the strength of the teacher.

Non-Numerical Time

The boy knows a lot of times, and they are presented in ‘compound form’ and ‘non numerical time’ to emphasize the way he has learned them: gettinguptime, timeforbed. These times contrast with ‘half-past two’ and emphasize the difference between child and adult experiences of life. The narrator understands the boy’s perspective of the world, and expects that we will too. 

Personification (also very poetic language)

Clock face, two little eyes, long legs for walking (what a horrible, mean image!)

Onomatopoeia

To click a language – logically illogical  the boy’s world does make sense, just not in ‘adult terms’

Oxymoron

Silent Noise – he goes into ‘silent noise’ and into the ‘smell of chrysanthemums’. Following adult reason, such things are impossible but, are they really?

Enjambment (run-on lines)

Often used to create a sense of breathless-ness, he has escaped!

Clockless Land of Ever

How many of us would like to live in a clockless land, where ‘time hides tick-less waiting to be born’? 

Fairytale language

Once upon a time, wicked, for ever (repeated), the idea that the teacher is reduced to ‘scuttling,’ the idea of escaping to a magical, safe land.

Tone

Nostalgic – can you feel the nostalgia for the childish, timeless world

Dreamy

Mocking of the teacher

Resources

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=157

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http://www.poetrycan.co.uk/