Before you were mine

• Context 


  Mother died a decade after the poem was written. It had an effect of "heartbreak" on Duffy. Raised in 50s as a Roman Catholic
• Structure 


  Separated pronouns, simple sentence and stanza structures, caesura, enaleptic frames housing flashbacks
• Language 


  Colloquial and possessive language, religious connotations
• Language 


  Colloquial and possessive language, religious connotations
• Poem is addressed to the speakers mother, speaker is looking at a photo of her mother and blending her own childhood memories with the life she imagined her mother would have had prior to her birth
• Mother/ child relationship
• Key themes 


  Parent and child

  Regret

  Aging

  Sacrifice
• "clear as scent"

  Duffy employs a synaesthesia by blending smell and sight. This could be Duffy reflecting on her first memories of her mother, though it is vague and unclear as to wether this is a fictional or concrete memory
• title is a possessive direct address
• STRUCTURE: 5 regular stanzas, symbolises regularity of time passing
• My loud possessive yell
• Mine, possessive language
• Those high heeled shoes. Relics. Symbolizes youth
• Each stanza opens with a reference to time