WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO LULU ???

BY

CHARLES CAUSLEY
CHARLES CAUSLEY

Prize-winning poet, playwright and children's author Charles Causley was born in Launceston,
Cornwall, on 24 August 1917, and was educated at Launceston College and Peterborough
Training College.

He began writing plays in the 1930s including Runaway (1936) and The Conquering Hero (1937),
and served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, an experience he wrote about in
Hands to Dance: Short Stories (1951), a collection of short stories, and in his first two
collections of poetry, Farewell, Aggie Weston (1951) and Survivor's Leave (1953). Union Street:
Poems (1957) included poems from both collections and was published with an introduction by
the writer Edith Sitwell.

After the war he trained to be a teacher, teaching at the grammar school in Launceston, and
became literary editor of two BBC radio magazines, 'Apollo in the West' and 'Signature' (1953-6).
In 1954 and 1966 he was awarded Travel Scholarships by the Society of Authors. He served on
the Poetry Panel of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1962-6 and was awarded the Queen's
Gold Medal for Poetry in 1967. He later won a Cholmondeley Award (1971) and the Ingersoll/T.
S. Eliot Award (1990). In 2000 he was awarded the Heywood Hill Literary Prize.

Other poetry books by Charles Causley include the collections Johnny Alleluia: Poems (1961),
Underneath the Water (1968), Secret Destinations (1984), and A Field of Vision (1988), as well
as poetry written for children including Figgie Hobbin: Poems for Children (1970), Jack the
Treacle Eater (1987), winner of the Kurt Maschler Award, and The Young Man of Cury and
Other Poems (1991). He is also editor of, and contributor to, numerous poetry anthologies and
wrote the librettos to William Mathias' opera Jonah, and Phyllis Tate's St Martha and the
Dragon. Charles Causley was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1958, and a CBE
in 1986. He died on 4 November 2003.
What Has Happened to Lulu ? ( Subject Matter)

What Has Happened to Lulu? is a poem told in a childs voice about his older sister running
away.

A child is asking his mother what has happened to his sister, Lulu. There is nothing in her room,
and her money-box has gone, with only an open window and an old rag-doll left behind. His
mother is crying and burning a note. He thinks he heard voices and a car in the middle of the
night, but his mother tells him he was only dreaming.

The poem is a ballad, written in four line stanzas where the second and fourth lines rhyme. This
regular and simple form seems appropriate for the voice of the narrator, which is of a young
child.

It is a first person dramatic monologue that is addressed to the mother of the narrator. It is
almost entirely written in questions, both reflecting the age of the speaker and his puzzlement
at what has happened to his sister. The form suggests the childs innocence, while allowing the
reader to read between the lines and understand what has happened.

Imagery

The image of the abandoned bed is the main one, described by the child narrator. The inclusion
of childhood objects such as a rag-doll and a money-box emphasise the youth and innocence of
the run-away Lulu. They are contrasted with the roar of the car engine heard in the night and
the grown-up world that the narrator does not understand, emphasised by the constant
questions. The curtain can be seen as a metaphor for Lulus new freedom, contrasted by the
dust on the shelf that represents her previous life.

Sound

The doubling of the sound in Lulu, together with the high level of repetition of both the name
and its shortening in the poem, create a strong echo of the sound which is also the rhymed
sound in the first and last stanza. This is quite a childish sound, and helps to create the plaintive
note in the childs questioning.

The poem takes an approach that makes the reader work to figure out what has happened. We
have to piece together the clues given in the poem. This is in contrast to the apparent simplicity
of the poem provided by the ballad format and the childs voice. Doing this also puts the reader
in the position of the child, who does not understand what is going on. We, like the narrator,
have more questions than answers. The tone is one of puzzlement.
What Has Happened to Lulu? deals with themes of grief and love. The mother is grieving over
her lost child. The fact that the child has run away does not make the grief less significant. The
confusion of the narrator about his or her parents reaction also tells us something about the
nature of grief.

The poem also considers how we deal with children, in dismissing what they have heard or seen.
The child narrator has some valid knowledge of what has happened, but his mother tells him he
dreamed it. The poem raises the question of how the child can react, when he has been told
nothing is the matter, when clearly it is. Ironically the mother does not know what to do, as the
final stanza makes clear.

Questions

What has happened to Lulu ?

What caused her to leave ?
Who cried ? Why, do you think ?
How did Lulu leave the house ?
What did she take with her?
How does the mother feel?
Who is the narrator of the poem?
What does the mother tell him/her? Why?

Activity 1 - Turn it into drama !

How can we turn this poem into a piece of drama ?

What characters are needed?
Where should we start ?
What happens?
Why does she go ?
Elements of the Poem
Setting Persona

Moral Values Themes

Message Tone and Mood

Language and Style

The Living Photograph

BY

Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father. She was
adopted by a white couple at birth and was brought up in Glasgow, studying at the Royal Scottish
Academy of Music and Drama and Stirling University where she read English.

The experience of being adopted by and growing up withing a white family inspired her first collection of
poetry, The Adoption Papers (1991). The poems deal with an adopted child's search for a cultural
identity and are told through three different voices: an adoptive mother, a birth mother and a daughter.
The collection won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award, the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year
Award and a commendation by the Forward Poetry Prize judges in 1992.

Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father. She was
adopted by a white couple at birth and was brought up in Glasgow, studying at the Royal Scottish
Academy of Music and Drama and Stirling University where she read English.

The experience of being adopted by and growing up withing a white family inspired her first collection of
poetry, The Adoption Papers (1991). The poems deal with an adopted child's search for a cultural
identity and are told through three different voices: an adoptive mother, a birth mother and a daughter.
The collection kay_jackiewon a Scottish Arts Council Book Award, the Saltire Society Scottish First Book
of the Year Award and a commendation by the Forward Poetry Prize judges in 1992.

The poems in Other Lovers (1993) explore the role and power of language, inspired and influenced by
the history of Afro-Caribbean people, the story of a search for identity grounded in the experience of
slavery. The collection includes a sequence of poems about the blues-singer Bessie Smith. Off Colour
(1998) explores themes of sickness, health and disease through personal experience and metaphor. Her
poems have appeared in many anthologies, and she has written widely for stage and television.

Her first novel, Trumpet, published in 1998, was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize and was shortlisted
for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Inspired by the life of musician Billy Tipton, the novel
tells the story of Scottish jazz trumpeter Joss Moody whose death revealed that he was, in fact, a
woman. Kay develops the narrative through the voices of Moody's wife, his adopted son and a journalist
from a tabloid newspaper. Her books, Why Don't You Stop Talking (2002) and Wish I Was Here (2006),
are collections of short stories, and she has also published a novel for children, Strawgirl (2002). Her
collection of poetry for children, Red, Cherry Red (2007) won the 2008 CLPE Poetry Award.

Her novella, Sonata, was published in 2006; her book of poems Darling: New and Selected Poems in2007;
and her dramatised poem, The Lamplighter, in 2008.

Jackie Kay lives in Manchester. In 2006, she was awarded an MBE for services to literature.
 Synopsis
The persona in the poem describes the grandmother in two different forms ; one as
seen in the picture when the persona was three years old and another image where
grandmother was aging and finally passed away. Grandmothers image in the
photograph seems to be living vividly in the mind of the persona.

The persona seems to remember the grandmothers image on the photo as the one
that cherished and remembered. The poem reminds a lot of people who made a
mark in our lives who have left us and how their memories linger in our minds
through simple things like a photograph. It tells us the people we love will live in
our minds in the ways we want to remember them.

THE POEM

Stanza 1
The persona describes her grandmother in a photograph.
My small grandmother is tall there,
The grandmother in the photograph looks tall and standing
straight back, white broderies anglaise shirt,
straight. She is dressed in a white embroidered lace blouse
pleated skirt, flat shoes, grey bun
and matched with a pleated skirt. She wears flat shoes and
a kind, old smile round her eyes.
her grey hair is neatly made into a bun. She is smiling kindly
Her big hand holds mine,
and holding the personas hands. The personas description
white hand in black hand
of black and white hands shows that they are mixed race.
Her sharp blue eyes look her own death in the
The last line in the stanza suggests that despite her healthy
eye.
look, grandmothers death was near.

Stanza 2
It was true after all; that look. The personas reference to death in the first stanza is
My tall grandmother became small. proven true when grandmother started to show the signs of
Her back round and hunched. aging. Her grandmother becomes smaller and with a
Her soup forgot to boil. hunched back. The once strong and healthy grandmother
She went to the awful place grandmothers go. has now become fragile and forgetful. Eventually she dies
Somewhere unknown , unthinkable and goes to place beyond the persons imagination.

Stanza3
The persona feels the grandmothers presence whenever
But there she is still, she looks at her photograph. The persona shows that she
In the photo with me at three, wants to remember her grandmother as how she was when
The crinkled smile is still living, breathing. the person was three years old where her grandmother was
still healthy and strong.
THEMES

Remembering our loved ones through their memories

When looking at the old photographs the memories of family

members who had passed on are positively recollected. As seen in
the poem, the memories of the personas grandmother were
brought back to live through the photograph which was taken
when the grandmother was still alive. However, now that the
grandmother has passed away, looking at the photograph brings
back the good old memories the persona had with her
grandmother.

Love all regardless age, colours and creed.

It can be seen in the poem that love is shown by persona to her

grandmother, the vivid description of her grandmothers smile
reflects how much the persona misses and love her grandmother.
On the other hand, Grandma loved her grandchild very much while
she was alive despite there is a possibility that the grandchild was
of a mixed parentage as she is of a different colour.

Death is part and parcel of life

Death is an inevitable part of life and we are unable to avoid it in

the cycle of our lives. In the poem, the persona remembers how
the aging process of her grandmother has deteriorated her health
until she eventually passes away.
 MORAL VALUES

We must respect the elderly

Our grandmother and grandfather have sacrificed a lot for the family and country. Therefore it is only
fair for them to be shown some respect although at such age they may become senile, forgetful and
unable to do their daily chores on their own.

We must accept the death of someone in the family and move on

Death is a part and parcel of live we cannot avoid it. We should let go someone who has passed away
and instead of mourning their death, we should celebrate their lives and cherish the wonderful
memories as a tribute to them.

We must show our love towards our loved ones while they are alive

It is important for us to show our love towards our loved ones while they are still around as that will
be a memory that will be taken with us for a long period of time.

True love is unconditional

The love that the grandmother has shown towards the persona is something that the persona
remembers. The love from the grandmother comes unconditionally regardless of age, colour, race
and distance. Although the grandmother has gone to an 'unknown' place, the grandchild's love for her
grandmother has never faded.
 TONE AND MOOD
Tone Mood
Reflective Sad
The persona remembers how the grandmother The persona is sad that the grandmother has
was when the persona was three years old. She passed away. Her sadness can be felt when she
remembers how the aging process has affected described her grandmothers aging process
her grandmother. In the last stanza, it could be
seen that the persona wants to firmly remember
her grandmother as healthy and sound woman.
Nostalgic
The nostalgic tone in the poem can be felt when
the persona recalls the time spent with her
grandmother. Her closeness to her grandmother
is clearly portrayed in the poem and it creates a
warm and loving bond between a grandchild and
her grandmother.

SETTING
Most probably the poem is set in the present day where the persona is looking at old photographs
and comes across a photograph that was taken with her grandmother when the persona was three.
Looking at the photograph reminiscences the fond old memories, now that the grandmother has
passed away and the persona has grown up.

PERSONA

The poem is written in first person point of view. Most likely the poet herself is the persona in the
poem

LANGUAGE AND STYLE

The poet used a modern and free verse to write the poem; therefore it does not have rhyming or
rhythmic expressions. Besides, the language used in the poem is very simple and direct which helps
the readers to understand the poem better.
Literary Devices

In the poem the grandmother is described so

vividly that one can actually visualise very clearly
how the personas grandmother would actually
IMAGERY look like. In stanza one, grandmother's height,
posture, clothes and shoes are described very
effectively which help the readers to visualize the
persona's grandmother.

The line which says Her sharp blue eyes look

her own death in the eye is a metaphor where
the persona is actually trying to tell that the
METAPHOR grandmother is going to die after having taken
their pictures together.

There are few personified expressions found in

this poem :
PERSONIFICATION Her soup forgot to boil refers to how
grandmother has become forgetful
The crinkled smile is still living, breathing
refers to how lively the grandmothers smile was.

The photograph in the poem represents the

SYMBOLISM memories of the grandmother which was
treasured by the persona.
ACTIVITY The phrases below are the lines in the poem The Living Photograph by
1 Jackie Kay. Unscramble and rearrange the phrases in proper order.

1 MLASL YM ATMOEGRDHRN

2 GIENALSA EIBRDORE SITHR IETWH

3 SIKRT ELTPEDA

4 ILINVG IS SIELM ITSLL KILNCDER

5 OT FOGORT OUPS BLOI ERH

6 ADHN IMEN GBI EHR LSDHO

7 EM OHOPT THREE TA HWIT HTE IN

8 HTORMDNERAG ASMLL ALTL AEBCEM

9 HHUEDCN KBCA UNDOR NAD

10 NADH LCBAK IN WIEHT

11 IHANNKETLBU WSOEHMERE UNNOKNW

12 SLEIM EEYS ODRUN LDO REH

13 OG PCEAL AWULF DMRHGTRESOAN OT EWTN HET

14 SEYE HARSP REH LEBU

15 RTUE LAL RFATE SAW TI

16 THADE YEE KOLO EHR IN WNO

 Using the words and phrases below write a description of the personas
ACTIVITY 2(A)
grandmother in the photograph.

tall pleated skirt smile

straight back flat shoes sharp blue eyes

white broderie anglaise shirt grey bun white hand

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVITY 2(B) Use the words below to describe the personas aging grandmother.

small forgetful round and hunched

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________