Armitage’s poem continuously breaks the rules of a sonnet, which could reflect on the child constantly trying to escape from his mother to settle down. In a way Armitage shows the good and bad points of having a strong relationship with a mother. It can provide support for the child to grow up but it can also limit the child’s independence and when the child grows up it will struggle with life on its own. Both Lawrence’s and Armitage’s poems focus on relationships in different ways. On the one hand D.H Lawrence thinks that a strong friendship is unbreakable which nothing can interfere with. But on the second hand Armitage shows that a good relationship needs a mixture of being able to grow up independently and having support from their parents. …show more content…
It focuses on the relationship between a father and daughter. The poem is called “poem at 39” because when she wrote the poem she was aged 39. The significance of this year shows that she is at a benchmark in her life, between young and old. The years leading up to 40 are predominantly about planning and making your own future life. When you get to the age of 40, the emphasis shifts to settling down and reflecting on your past. The first stanza begins with “how I miss my father” showing that Alice misses and loves her father. When she was born her father was “so tired” indicating that he could have been working hard for little money and could have been racially abused in the past as he was a black man in America in the 40s. She wishes that he had not “been so tired” showing that she strongly cares about