How do the authors of Long Distance, The Sick Equation and My Grandmother enable us to understand the relationships described in the poems?
             In 'Long Distance', the rhyming pattern is abab cdcd efef, but in stanza four it changes. The rhyme pattern then changes to ghhg. The slowing down of the pace when you read the fourth stanza is very effective. The new tone and pace gives the poem a feeling of sadness. In the first three stanzas Harrison is talking about his father, then the first word in the fourth stanza is 'I' and Harrison is now talking about himself and how he feels.
             The poem reflects the poet's life as a working class child and the relationship between the father and his dead mother. He talks about his father's feelings and at the end of the poem, his own.
             His parents must have had a very strong and stable relationship as the father is still mourning the death of his wife two years on. They must have been very close. Harrison mentions in the poem, all the small things that the father continued to do for his wife: 'kept her slippers by the gas... put hot water bottles her side of the bed... and still went to renew her transport pass'. These must have been the things he did for her when she was still alive.
             There is a very informal and conversational feel to the poem, with the use of words such as: ' drop in... popped out.' It also, when read out, sounds as if Harrison is addressing an audience, and the whole poem has a chatty feel.
             Harrison uses the word 'raw' to describe his father's love for his mother. His father finds it difficult to accept that she has gone, 'though sure that very soon he'd hear her key scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief'. Maybe he is trying to imply also that the lock hasn't been used for a very long time, because the mother has not come back. Perhaps this is why the lock has gone ru...