Climbing My Grandfather by Andrew Waterhouse - AQAForm, structure and language

Form

The poem is an example of narrative verse. The poem uses the present tense and the first person throughout. Despite its use of the present tense, there is a strong sense that the poem is about the past and that its speaker, in the present, is trying hard to remember a figure from long ago.

Structure

The poem is presented as a single verse of 27 lines. It is not divided into stanzas and has no obvious structural features, such as rhymes or repetitions. Presenting the poem as one continuous piece may link to the idea of an imposing mountain waiting to be climbed. There is no set rhythmic pattern, so the tone is gentle, relaxed and conversational, almost as if the poet’s mind is wandering from memory to memory.

The poet uses enjambment often in the poem and this supports the idea of climbing a mountain and making transitions from one stage to the next of a continual journey.

Language

• Waterhouse uses an extended metaphor when he compares the grandfather and a mountain. This links to the idea of his grandfather being an imposing figure in the memory.
• Individual metaphors appear too, for example a scar is compared to a ‘glassy ridge’. These frequent comparisons of the grandfather to natural features of a mountain help the reader focus on the details of the man and show how the speaker finds remembering him enjoyable but also challenging.
• Waterhouse uses a simile to compare the grandfather’s skin to ‘ice’. But this is ‘warm ice’, a puzzling contradiction in terms known as a paradox. Waterhouse could be suggesting that it is impossible to put into words the exact feelings a memory can give.