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The Furthest Distance I've Travelled - Leontia Flynn - Coggle Diagram
The Furthest Distance I've Travelled - Leontia Flynn
The value and difficulty of friendships
A progression is find throughout the poem as the speaker reveals to the reader that whilst physical journeys may be the surface-level focus, the connections forged between herself and others in those curious times were most important
This revelation emphasises the coming-of-age feel
The final stanza holds more regular rhythm within rhyming cuplets. Cuplets create a sense of cohesion and collaboration, stability in the safety of others
Past and Present:
This theme could be linked in the way that the narrator develops from their past self of wanting to travel and explore the world, to their current more mature self who is able to also recognise the influence of emotional journeys.
'anon-mity'
relates to the poet's claim that their poetry can be quite auditory / lyrical
Title:
'Furthest' does imply that the speaker has a lot of experience, and is speaking from a place of strong understanding about relationships
Free verse:
Suggests lack of stability and also a sense of youthful freedom / lack of responsibility. The speaker does not conform herself to a rigid structure. She learns from her own mistakes and experience
Rhyme scheme: AABB - cuplets
Proper nouns: The names of remote places conjure up this lost excitement but now moving on means leaving people behind. These memories might be 'throwaway' but they are also 'souvenirs' and 'valentines'
Imagery:
There is a contrast between the travel imagery about going away to different far off places and the things that represent the everyday distances she has experienced with people
"cinema stubs/Post-it/souvenirs"
Tone:
Whereas once the lack of stability represented freedom in the poem, now it represents a sadness that things do constantly change, as well as nostalgia for the lost exhilaration of life on the open road.
'It's as if the poem is kicking against it's own constraints, and this is partly what gives the poem it's sense of freewheeling energy. The tone only shifts in the final stanza when the couplets finally settle into full rhyme with lines of similar length.
Seeking friendship VS Settling down
'thought: Yes. This is how / to live.'
Youthful niavety, does juxtapose her current life, as clearly, that life has changed. she no longer lives like that.
'clear as over a tannoy'
'the way my spine
curved under it like a meridian—'
Coming-of-age