i want stanza wise explanation of this poem DEAR MUM
while you were out
a cup went and broke itself,
a crack appeard in the blue vase
your great-great grandad
brought back from Mr. Ming in China.
Somehow, without me even turning on the tap,
the sink mysteriously overflowed.
A strange jam-stain,
about the size of a boy's hand,
appeard on the kitchen wall.
I don't think we will ever dicover
exactly how the cat
managed to turn on the washer-machine
(especialy from inside),
or how sis's pet rabbit went out and mistook
the waste-desposal unit for a burrow.
Ican teel you i was scared when,
as if by magic,
a series of muddy footprints
appeared on the new white carpet.
I was being good
(honest)
buti think the house id haunted so
knowing you're going to have a fit
I've gone to gran's for a bit.
Answers
Dear Mum
While you were out
A cup went and broke itself,
A crack appeared in the blue vase
Your great-great grandad
Brought back ...
Start with the obvious: it's a poem pretending to be a letter. It's addressed 'Dear'. The letter's addressed to 'Mum', so we can assume that (given the form of address) it's likely that the poetic voice (or, in this instance, the writer of the letter/note is a child).
It's a comic poem, as we learn immediately: we're told (as Mum is told)
a cup went out and broke itself
We know, as Mum will know, that it's impossible for a cup to break itself, and that our protagonist is responsible. So too is he responsible for everything he tries to absolve himself of in the poem - and that's its joke. Yet here Patten's also making a poetic joke: he's using a type of metaphor - a poetic lie - called personification to embody the protagonist's thoughts. Personification pretends that inanimate objects are alive, and this poem has several as well as the self-breaking cup: magically appearing jam stains and self-cracking vases. It's like a magic imagined world has come alive.
There's a growing irony too in the poem: the more the poetic voice claims innocence, the more we realise they are guilty.
In terms of its form, Patten employs shifting irregular line lengths and no strict verse form or rhyme scheme - though he does end his poem with a rhyming couplet, which just finishes it off with a flourish:
knowing you’re going to have a fit,
I’ve gone over to Gran’s for a bit.
the poet knows his mom is going to be angry, so he went to his grandpa to save himself
The poem "Dear Mum" is the poem which has been written by a boy who has left a letter behind him for his mother. During the time when his mother was out and only he was left alone in the house, he attempted all the mischievous things which he can do. He noted down everything which he had done under the name of the ghost. He wrote that everything happened on its own and he has done nothing. These things, in turn, had made him feel scared and because of this, he had left to his grandfather's place.
The poem is about the innocence of the children. It is the nature of the children to explore and to hunt for all the things about which they don't know things. In the absence of the mother, the poet had discovered and explored everything possible in the house and had named the ghost to be the doer. The way the poet had expressed all the activities makes the poem very approachable and subtle.