Originally by Carol Ann Duffy

Originally is an autobiographical poem by Carol Ann Duffy.

Duffy considers and explores the sense of isolation and confusion she felt as a child when her family moved from the Gorbals in Glasgow to England.

Carol Ann Duffy describes:

• the literal details of the journey and the move
• the deeper, metaphorical journey that she and her family experienced as a result of this decision

The poem explores themes of identity, childhood and loss.

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You can read Originally by Carol Ann Duffy on the Scottish Poetry Library website.

Like much of Carol Ann Duffy’s work, Originally has a regular structure and the three stanzas of eight lines help to divide the poem into a straightforward chronology.

• Stanza one recalls the journey from Glasgow towards her new home
• Stanza two explores her initial sense of not fitting in to this new landscape.
• Stanza three considers the larger question about how our sense of identity is formed, shaped and affected by such transitions.

However, underneath this apparently ordered structure, the poet’s anxiety and uncertainty is revealed through the lack of a regular rhythm or rhyme scheme, which reinforces the lack of order in her own life at this time.

The fact that Originally is mainly composed of a series of fragmented memories, occasionally using deliberately childish words or phrases, is reminiscent of the way most of us recall our own childhood and adds to the authenticity of the poem.

In the first stanza of Originally, Carol Ann Duffy describes the experience of moving from Scotland to England. The use of "we" in the opening line makes clear the whole family is moving - this is not her decision:

We came from our own country

Similarly, the deliberate, harsh alliteration of "came" and "country" and assonance of “our own” reinforces her definite sense of belonging to and possessing a particular place. But it is clear that Duffy's perspective is from where she is now - we have a sense of her arrival, not where she has left.

Duffy describes the interior of the train as:

a red room / which fell through the fields

The colour red has connotations of passion or anger, perhaps reflecting her own feelings about being forced to leave the city of her birth and early childhood. At the same time, the word choice and alliteration of "fell" and "fields" emphasises her feelings of impotence and lack of control in the making of this important decision.

She recalls hearing:

our mother singing / our father’s name to the turn of the wheels.

The optimistic mood of her mother acts as a distinct contrast to the obvious negativity of Duffy herself and is also slightly ambiguous. The reader is unsure whether their father is in the train carriage with them or if they are travelling to meet him at their destination.

She also remembers the behaviour of her younger brothers whose emotions seem to reflect her own:

My brothers cried, one of them bawling, Home, Home

The repetition and capitalisation of the word "home" reinforces the misery and overwhelming sense of loss and separation that she associates with this time.

Duffy uses personification in the line:

the miles rushed back to the city

This emphasises her own desire to return to Glasgow, to reverse this trip and reinhabit "the street, the house, the vacant rooms/where we didn’t live any more".

Again, the first person plural of "we" emphasises that, even though this poem is written from her own perspective, she very clearly considers the impact of the move not just on her but on the rest of her family. In contrast to her younger siblings, whose protestations are loud and vocal, Duffy is silent as she:

stared / at the eyes of a blind toy

The word choice of "blind" again exposes her uncertainty and anxiety as they head towards something unknown and unfamiliar. There is a hint of growing up and leaving childhood - as if she now sees a comforting teddy or doll for what it really is.

This stanza opens with perhaps the most memorable words in Originally in Duffy's assertion that:

All childhood is an emigration.

This metaphor reveals one of the key ideas explored by Carol Ann Duffy in this work as she considers the wider, more generic experience of childhood itself which, by definition, is equated with changes and transitions that are often beyond our control.

In the remainder of the stanza, the elongated, drawn out phrasing of the first three lines emphasises the slow stages of childhood and provides a contrast with the short, abrupt sentences that follow in the lines

Others are sudden.

Watch this quick revision video to find out how Carol Ann Duffy uses different kinds of punctuation for emphasis in stanza two of Originally.

Your accent wrong.

Having the "wrong" accent conveys how communication and acceptance is much more complex than merely speaking the same language. Her sense of confusion and not belonging is again reinforced as she recalls:

Corners, which seem familiar leading to unimagined, pebble-dashed estates

The word choice of "seem" and "unimagined" exposes her inability to negotiate her way successfully through this new, strange and unfamiliar landscape. Similarly, she recollects:

big boys / eating worms and shouting words you don’t understand

This underpins her sense of confusion as she is confronted by behaviour and language that is alien to her.

In the last two lines of this stanza, the initial optimism of her mother in the first stanza has been replaced with an anxiety that "stirred like a loose tooth." This is an interesting simile. While it emphasises that her parents too are struggling with aspects of the move, their fears are not enough to provoke a strong reaction – a loose tooth can easily fall out of its own accord or be quickly extracted. Again there is a suggestion of growing up - of a baby tooth that will soon be replaced .

The final line of this stanza is italicised:

I want our own country

This reminds us again of the autobiographical nature of the poem and is a reference back to the "our own country" from the first line of stanza one. For only the second time in the poem, Duffy uses "I" here, suggesting separation from her family, as she grows up and expresses her own opinion.

It acts almost as a childish lament, perhaps one that was constantly repeated during this upsetting transition and reminds us, like the words big boys used earlier, how young Duffy was when this event occurred.

The final stanza of Originally opens with the conjunctive "But" to indicate a change in Carol Ann Duffy's line of thought as she meditates on the inevitability of change and adaptation. She uses the second person to directly expose the often fragile nature of childhood memory.

you forget, or don’t recall

The speaker in this stanza is older and more reflective as she considers her own gradual transition. Recalling seeing her brother "swallow a slug" refers back to the boys eating worms in the second stanza. It implies that this act is evidence that he has fully assimilated into his new home. The simple alliteration indicates that this was a straightforward process for him.

However, the deliberate employment of the Scottish dialect in the phrase "a skelf of shame" reveals that she still feels attached to her Scottish roots and is unwilling to fully relinquish the last traces of her Scottish dialect. Even so, a skelf if something small, so there is a hint that her shame, though painful, is minor.

While her brothers have successfully adapted, she still feels out of place and, like a splinter, memories of her former life continue to trouble her. While she remembers eventually her "tongue shedding its skin like a snake" and "her voice/ in the classroom sounding just like the rest" there is a definite implication that, despite these outward signs she has adapted, she continues to feel out of place. A snake sheds its skin in order to grow, so there is a suggestion the change Duffy is going through is an essential part of her growing up and moving on.

As the poet moves towards her conclusion, she asks the first of three questions:

Do I only think / I lost a river, culture, speech, sense of first space / and the right place?

It is this question that the poet has been attempting to answer throughout the entire poem and yet still by the end she is nowhere nearer to a resolution.

In asking this, she challenges both herself and us to consider our own notions of self and identity. Has she really lost any of these connections? Or are they all still part of her?

By the end of the poem it is clear that the poet is no closer to defining her identity. When asked the question "Where do you come from?" she still has to qualify and clarify this simple query with the response "Originally?" This momentary hesitation reveals that even though she is older, the speaker continues to have mixed feeling about her true origins.

In this poem, Carol Ann Duffy reveals the importance of early childhood memories and experiences in shaping identity and also considers the impact of significant domestic changes during the formative years.

It is clear that even though Duffy was only six when she moved to England, her sense of Scottishness has stayed with her.

However, this affinity has resulted in a sense of confusion about her own identity and where she belongs and Originally is her own attempt to define more precisely where her true origins lie.

Although asserting that all childhoods involve change and transition, she feels a distinct pull towards this country that she left so young and there is a definite feeling of loss running through the poem.

In recalling how easily her brothers were able to adapt she emphasises her own sense of separateness.

In the move from her first childhood home, as well as the shift from childhood to young adulthood, the speaker acknowledges what has been lost:

All childhood is an emigration.

Leaving behind once much loved “blind toys” is a part of every childhood, but when you also move country, your accent is “wrong”, and you must acclimatise quickly to fit in:

my tongue / shedding its skin like a snake, my voice / in the classroom sounding just like the rest

The speaker recognises the loss – the vivid image of “shedding the skin” of her tongue and discarding it, the connotations of a “snake”, often used as a symbol of betrayal, as she feels she is giving up her old self and becoming the same as her new classmates. The hesitation in the final line highlights that loss of a secure answer to the question "where do you come from?" and the identity that is bound up with that question.

Originally has obvious parallels with In Mrs Tilscher’s Class as both poems deal with growing up, and reflect on childhood with a sense of nostalgia.

In Mrs Tilscher’s Class looks at this period of change with a feeling of excitement, as the young people in the class did not know yet what lay ahead of them. Originally suggests more of an immediate sense of loss as growing up is presented alongside the family’s sudden move from Scotland to England.

Before You Were Mine also reflects on the past as a more carefree time – in this poem, the speaker imagines her mother while she was young, and the life she had before having a mother's responsibilities. The clear love in the poem is complex, as it is a reflection on a time in the mother’s life that the speaker never actually witnessed and therefore is imagined. A bit like some of the wistfulness for childhood and first home in Originally, the nostalgia sees the speaker acknowledging this loss of youth and exuberance.

The sense of looking back to a more innocent, happy past is also shared with Medusa, Mrs Midas and Havisham. All these poems are told by women looking back at relationships before they went wrong. Like the worms and slugs eaten in Originally, they all contrast unpleasant or ugly imagery with a warmer, longed for past.

Test your knowledge of Originally and other poems by Carol Ann Duffy with these interactive National 5 English quizzes.