AKALA:Are there moments in your life, you will never forget? Moments you can picture right now, if you close your eyes. Perhaps just a small moment, a little thing but it's stuck right there, inside your head. And then you realise why. Why this particular little memory is so important.
ANDREW FORSTER:'This poem is based on a real incident, on a memory from childhood. A poem really comes to life through its details.' Saddled with you for the afternoon,
ANDREW FORSTER:me and Paul, ambled across the threadbare field to the bus stop
ANDREW FORSTER:talking over Sheffield Wednesday's chances in the cup
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY'S
ANDREW FORSTER:'while you skip beside us in your ridiculous tank top' spouting six-year-old views on Rotherham United.
ANDREW FORSTER:'With the two older boys, I wanted to give the idea that they looked down on the younger boy. I wanted to set up the relationship between them through their language.' When I first had the memory of it, which was quite sudden and I asked him about it and he had no recollection of it at all. Which is probably just as well.
AKALA:Yeah probably. You got a little bit of older brother's guilt there that just came back to you. OK. And it begins with this really interesting word.
AKALA:'"Saddled," so that really sets up our understanding 'of these young people and who they are.
ANDREW FORSTER:'I was trying to create a picture of these two brothers' who were almost polar opposites really.
AKALA:And you get that even in the way the younger brother's movement is described versus the two older boys. You know, the words, the verbs that are chosen.
ANDREW FORSTER:Words like ambled and strolled and language that's-- That the two older boys use is all very much about being cool. You know they're nine and they're ten, they're really not that adult but see themselves in that way I think.
AKALA:You specifically remember your younger brother's ridiculous tank top.
ANDREW FORSTER:I think I probably wore them as well. You'd be embarrassed by their-- Well the clothes that your brother would wear I guess.
SOPHIA THAKUR:You separate from your siblings and there's an age when
SOPHIA THAKUR:you acknowledge that your sibling is younger than you and you want to have that distance with them because you want to be a-- You want to be a grown up and in order to be a grown up you have to separate yourself from anyone younger than you.
ANTHONY ANAXAGOROU:But he's completely detached himself from his actual brother
ANTHONY ANAXAGOROU:and he said that his mate is more like him than his actual brother.
ANDREW FORSTER:'It was only looking back that I realised quite how much it was set in a particular place and in a particular time cause there's a lot of 1970s images in there as well.' Suddenly you froze, said you hadn't any bus fare.
ANDREW FORSTER:I sighed, said you should go and ask mum
ANDREW FORSTER:and while you windmilled home I looked at Paul.
ANDREW FORSTER:His smile, like mine, said I was nine and he was ten
ANDREW FORSTER:and we must stroll the town, doing what grown-ups do.
LIONHEART:Even with that line where it says- "his smile like mine said I was nine"
LIONHEART:like there's that assonance in there
LIONHEART:and with something you can relate to it because it has that pentameter set to it that rhythm set to it. You kind of gain that momentum
LIONHEART:and also the resonance with that person as well.
ANDREW FORSTER:When you get to the second half of the poem, it becomes a bit more formal. It starts to sound more like an older person looking back. Looking back I saw you spring towards the gate,
ANDREW FORSTER:your hand holding out what must have been a coin. I ran on, unable to close the distance I'd set in motion.
SOPHIA THAKUR:It says I ran unable to close the distance, he's gone ahead and in him going ahead he can't take back those years and become close to him, he can't grow down do you know what I mean, he's grown up and he's separated I think
SOPHIA THAKUR:he chose the lexis unable for a reason cause it's quite strong like, even if he wants to he can't.
AKALA:You do feel the empathy and sympathy for the younger brother who is left behind and there's-- It's quite a sad poem in some sense. You have this image of your younger brother "holding out what must have been a coin." It kind of leaves us with a sense of desperation, it's a very vivid image.
ANDREW FORSTER:Yeah, when I remembered that it's the bit I felt particularly guilty about. I think what I tried to do is create a picture so that people would get a lot of those feelings themselves 'from reading it. 'And the final line which seems to suggest that the incident has an effect on those two brothers really came out of the story.'
ANDREW FORSTER:'It was somewhere that the poem itself seemed to want to go.'
AKALA:'The younger brother skipping over the gate -' always running, chasing, never catching up. The poem recreates this memory and the language burns it into your brain 'and into the mind of the older brother - this day he can't forget.'
Akala meets the Yorkshire poet Andrew Forster to explore his poem 'Brothers', about the emotions at stake in a sibling relationship.
The poet and presenter breakdown the imagery and formal considerations at work in the poem, with the help of young poets actively involved in poetry and spoken word.
This clip is from the series Poetry: Between the Lines
Teacher Notes
This could be used to explore the theme of Relationships in poetry, and to teach analysis of poetic technique and form.
Students can be encouraged to become fluent with critical terminology and language, and develop their own interpretations of poems they have read.
It could also be useful in highlighting context and biography in literature, especially to illustrate the poetic work of Andrew Forster.
Students can explore and develop their own taste in poetry, and share their discoveries with the class.
Curriculum Notes
This clip will be relevant for teaching English Literature.
This topic appears in OCR, Edexcel, AQA, WJEC KS4/GCSE in England and Wales, CCEA GCSE in Northern Ireland and SQA National 4/5 in Scotland.