Understanding Coming Home by Owen Sheers

Building Background: Use the images to answer these questions:

1. What is your perception of time?

2. Is time important to you?
3. Do you know other works (movies or literary works) related to time?
What are they?

The poem:

1 My mothers hug is awkward,

As if the space between her open arms
is reserved for a child, not this body of a man.
In the kitchen she kneads the dough,
5 flipping it and patting before laying in again.
The flour makes her over, dusting
The hairs on her cheek, smoothing out wrinkles.

Dad still goes and soaks himself in the rain.

Up to his elbows in hedge, he works
10 on a hole that reappears every Winter,
its edges laced with wet wool
frozen breaths snagged on the blackthorn.
When he comes in again his hair is wild,
and his pockets are filled with filings of hay.

1 All seated, my grandfather pours the wine.

5 His unsteady hand makes the neck of the bottle
shiver on the lip of each glass;
it is a tune he plays faster each year.

Comprehension:

A) Read poem again very quickly and find answers for the
following questions:
1. Who are the characters represented in the poem?

2. How does Sheers present the passing of time in Coming Home?

3. How does Sheers organize the stanzas?

4. Why is the last stanza shorter than the other two?

5. How does gender function in the poem?

6. In the poem, the poet used many repetitive elements. What are they
and what role do they play in the poem?

B) Read the poem again very quickly and find answers for the
following questions in the stanzas specified:
1. In the first stanza, how does the speaker feel about the mothers
hug?

2. What does the author mean by smoothing out wrinkles?

3. In the second stanza, the poet starts with dad instead of father.
Why do you think he uses it? What is the significance of it when
compared to mother in the first stanza and grandfather in the
last stanza?

4. In the final stanza, what does the speaker imply about the family
relations?
5. What does the poet mean by Its a tune he plays faster each year?

C) Read the poem again and find quotations about the following
statements from the poem:

Point Quote
In the first stanza, Sheers uses a
powerful image to illustrate the
mothers ageing process.

Sheers uses present simple tense

to give the poem a more
observational look.

The seasonal reference implies

the family has a yearly routine.

The auditory image in the last

stanza ends the poem with a
lasting image of ageing.