Question

What message does the poem a photography give us?

Answer 1

Shirley Toulson’s ‘A Photograph` unfolds the very tenet of “Time – and Timelessness”. The poem strongly hints at the eternal state of the natural being and ephemeral state of the humans. Here we are acquainted with a picture of sea beach and three girls including the poet’s mother. Sea rarely changed but the mother of the poet met the horns of death.A photograph is melancholic to the utmost. We are acquainted here about loss, pain and separation. The smiling photograph creates a pang in the heart of the poet as she remembers and misses her mother with a doleful heart. The absence of her mother in her life has made her life a gloomy one. If nostalgia describes sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations, then ‘A photograph` is a nostalgic poem. We find the poet to acquaint us with past happy moments related to her mother’s childhood and happy days.