Key learning points

1. The speaker is initially looking at a photo and reminiscing about their mother’s life before she had children.
2. The mother's life seemed glamorous, rebellious and full of promise before the speaker was born.
3. The speaker feels her birth made her mother's life more mundane due to the responsibilities of parenthood.
4. Duffy is a feminist writer who often criticises conventional and restrictive roles for women.
5. This poem is semi-autobiographical, based on photographs of Duffy’s mother as a young woman.

Common misconception

Keywords

• Mundane - ordinary, lacking excitement or interest

• Feminist - advocating for the social, political, and economic rights of women

• Semi- autobiographical - partially based on the author's own life experiences, events, or perspectives

• Alluring - attractive in a mysterious or tempting way; captivating and seductive

• Relic - an object surviving from a past era, often with historical, cultural, or sentimental significance