Your questions about Baby Sitting
\nTo read poem click the link at the bottom<\/p>\n
Q My teacher and some of my class think the poem is about post-natal depression. I think it\u2019s about baby-sitting. Who is right?<\/p>\n
A You are right. You\u2019ve listened carefully to the language of the poem, and trusted the poet. The evidence is on your side. Start with the title: \u2018Baby-Sitting\u2019. This is a deliberate choice, and intended to guide the reader. In line 1 and line 2 there are two important words: \u2018strange\u2019 to describe the room, and \u2018wrong\u2019 to describe the baby. I, the baby-sitter, am telling you, the reader, that I am sitting in an unfamiliar room, not in my own house. Then I tell you that I am listening for \u2018the wrong baby\u2019, that is, not my baby. Later, I emphasise this: \u2018I don\u2019t love this baby.\u2019 Look at the last two lines of the first verse: that this baby\u2019s breath \u2018fails to enchant me\u2019 implies that I understand the experience of being enchanted by a baby\u2019s breath. I use the word \u2018perfume\u2019 \u2013 something joyfully experienced as a mother.<\/p>\n
The second verse is all about the baby\u2019s feeling in the company of a stranger. It describes the baby\u2019s fear and loneliness. Further proof that the baby-sitter is not sorry for herself, but sorry for the baby.<\/p>\n
Readers who think about post natal depression must say that it is THEIR thought, and must first take note of the clear intention of the poem before they add their own thoughts<\/p>\n
Q What is \u2018the monstrous land\u2019?
\nA The baby\u2019s bad dream. Maybe what woke the baby was a dream about monsters.<\/p>\n
Q Why have you used the words \u2018snuffly, roseate, bubbling sleep.\u2019?
\nA The words describe a baby sleeping, snuffly, with rosy cheeks and a bubbly nose.<\/p>\n
Q Why have you used capital letters at the start of each line even when it\u2019s not a new sentence?
\nA I wrote the poem a long time ago. Poems used to be printed with capital letters at the start of the line. I don\u2019t do it now. I think it looks old fashioned.<\/p>\n
Q What do you mean by \u2018the wrong baby\u2019?
\nA From its birth a baby knows its own mother, and a mother knows her baby. There is, usually, a powerful bond from the start. There has to be for us human beings to survive. If you watch a flock of sheep you\u2019ll see how the lambs, which all look the same to us, run crying to find their mothers. The \u2018wrong baby\u2019 is the wrong lamb. There is no bond between the baby sitter and the baby, so they are wrong for each other.<\/p>\n
Q Why are you afraid of the baby?
\nA The baby sitter is scared that the baby will wake, and she won\u2019t be able to comfort her.<\/p>\n
Q What is \u2018the bleached bone in the terminal ward\u2019?
\nA I imagine a man dying in a hospital ward, the curtains drawn about his bed, his wife watching. His body is a bony shape under the white sheet, like, I thought, a \u2018bleached bone\u2019 on a beach. Surely a baby crying for its mother feels as abandoned as that woman seeing her husband die. I am still surprised that such a bleak image came to me as I wrote about such an ordinary activity as baby sitting. I was trying to look at loss from a baby\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n
Read the Poem<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Your questions about Baby Sitting To read poem click the link at the bottom Q My teacher and some of my class think the poem is about post-natal depression. I think it\u2019s about baby-sitting. Who is right? A You are right. You\u2019ve listened carefully to the language of the poem, and trusted the poet. The… Continue reading Notes: Baby Sitting<\/span>