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The Almond Tree

• By Jon Stallworthy

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All the way to the hospital the lights were
green as peppermints

• Imagery simile excitement- children become
  excited by sweets suggests that at this stage
  he has childish views on life.
• Childish in its cheerfulness and its innocence
  sets not only an intended mood but the basis for
  a dramatic contrast to come.
• All hyperbolic statement optimism
  naivety.
• Introduces the physical journey which takes place
• Introduces the first section of the poem his
  journey to the hospital and his anticipation of
  the birth of his child.
• Do you think this is a natural response?

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As if I were the lucky prince in an enchanted
wood

• Sense of pride and good fortune
• Fairytale imagery reinforces his childish
  perception of the world
• Foreshadowing woods are stereotypically
  associated with danger in fairytales
• He is unaware of the reality that lies ahead

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Swung by the road from bend to bend

• Personification illustrates his lack of control
  external forces are leading him to his
  destination.
• This contrasts with his previous futile belief
  that he could control nature (summon
  summerbanish winter)
• Foreshadowing the reader is increasingly aware
  that his optimism and naivety may be thwarted
• Introduces one of the main themes fate.
• The physical journey continues but is becoming
  increasingly challenging

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blood was runningdown through the delta of my
wristand under archesof bright bone.

• Introduces another key theme the power of
  nature and its connection with all things.
• Personification mirrors the sense of urgency in
  his movements and illustrates his excitement
• Alliteration mirrors the sound of his heartbeat
• Colour contrast connotations of danger, or
  injury, with peace
• Reference to the physical form reminds us that
  this is not a fairytale
• Gruesome imagery reminds us of the mans
  mortality and the frailty thereof.

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Centuries,continents it had crossedfrom an
undisclosed beginningspiralling to an unmapped
end.

• Journey suggestion of time and distance
  travelled
• Spiralling and unmapped reinforces his lack
  of control over his own destiny. It is inherently
  dark and frightening.
• undisclosed reinforces the uncertainty of
  this situation and of life
• Centuries and continents illustrate the
  enormity of the journey that he is embarking on
• Introduces his literal and metaphorical journey
• The tone at the end of this stanza is one of
  uncertainty and doubt. This marks the end of the
  first subdivision.

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Crossing (at sixty) Magdalen Bridge

• Parenthesis explicit reference to his sense of
  urgency
• Reference to Magdalen Bridge (in Oxford) puts the
  poem into context
• Oxford is renowned for the abundance of almond
  trees

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Let it be a son, a son, saidthe man in the
driving mirror,Let it be a son.

• Tone- re-establishes the optimistic, cheerful
  tone.
• Repetition embodies his hope and eagerness for
  a son. In his naivety his only concern is the
  gender of his unborn child rather than for its
  health.
• the man indicates that as he reflects on the
  experience he no longer recognises his former
  self .

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The towerheld up its hand the collegebells
shook their blessings on his head.

• Personification in his optimism he interprets
  this gesture as a welcome
• Bells ambiguous symbol of peace and good
  fortune.
• his head connotations of a christening.
• A sense of foreboding is created as the clock
  chimes.

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I parked in an almond'sshadow blossom, for the
treewas waving, waving at me upstairs with a
child's hands.
shadow blossom oxymoron illustrates his
optimism with the reality. shadow dark and
sinister connotations whist blossom has bright
connotation development and nurture. There are
two aspects to nature.
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The almond tree - symbolism

• Stallworthy introduces the motif of the almond
  tree whose significance cannot be appreciated at
  this point.
• This excerpt, like that of the peppermint-green
  street lights, implies situational innocence.

• This stanza concludes the first of the three
  major divisions of the poem preceding the birth
  of the child.
• Stallworthy uses these stanzas and their childish
  imagery to render a mood which the following
  lines will completely destroy.

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Up the spinal stair

• Up contrast in the optimistic tone created in
  the initial lines of the poem as it suggests that
  his journey will become more challenging
• Spinal further reference to the physical form
  and the associated frailty
• Repeated references to the physical form create
  an ambiguous fear in the reader and a cold tone
  which seems to be leading to an event less
  endurable.
• The metaphors of the body also indicate that the
  persona is once again going to face his mortality
  his basic nature.

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blood tide swungme swung me

• Reference to nature the power of nature is
  illustrated in the fact that once again he does
  not have the ability to control it.
• Repetition mirrors the indiscriminate movement
  and emotions
• Imagery blood tide connotations of a mass
  area of blood which further reinforces the
  gruesome nature of the delivery room.
• Which is the most powerful element of nature?

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whose walls shuddered with the shuddering womb

• Repetition of shuddering is ambiguous. It could
  refer to his wifes contractions. This literal
  reference is continued with the reference to the
  womb.
• The word choice is effective as it has sinister
  connotations and therefore could indicate his own
  response to the news of his childs disorder.
• The word evokes feelings of pain and distress it
  is a word of helplessness, fear and withdrawal.

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Rhythm

• Throughout the fifth stanza, to this point, the
  rhythm has been fast, irregular, with very short
  lines, sometimes containing only one word.
• This suggests both the racing mind and the very
  quick heartbeat, both natural correlates of
  awaiting ones child birth.
• However, they are also frightening and seem to
  foreshadow something awful.

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New-minted, my bright farthing!Coined by our
love, stampedWith our images, how youEnrich us!

• Tone changes to one of elation.
• The imagery created by the extended metaphor
  implies that he feels that his life has been
  enhanced.
• The new coin just formed at the mint, suggests
  absolute perfection and purity.
• For the first time, a sense of unity has been
  suggested.
• The new father is ecstatic he is finally
  secure, finally confident in the success of the
  birth.
• best poem enriched expression of a man who
  truly believes that a fathers child is his
  greatest accomplishment.
• The language in this section is far more poetic
  and cathartic in its descriptiveness.

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Rhythm

• The rhythm in these lines is much smoother and
  easier to read as if the mans heart is finally
  at ease.

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At seven-thirtythe visitors' bell scissored
the calmof the corridors.

• Tone reverts to one of panic.
• Scissored negative connotations of an
  instrument of pain.
• Symbolism bells had previously been a sign of
  good fortune this time the bells interrupt the
  scene of tranquility.
• The precision of the time suggests that he is
  reliving this experience.

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The doctor walked with me / to the slicing doors

• Word choice reinforces an instrument of pain.
• This enforces the suspense which has already been
  created.
• The rhythm is still slow and evokes a sense of
  sympathy on behalf of the doctor.

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His hand is upon my arm,/ his voice I have to
tell / you - set another bell / beating in my
head

• Now the doctor, in his attempts to sustain the
  mans composure, places a his apologetic hands
  upon him, and is obviously bracing him for some
  inconceivable information.
• Notice the change from past tense to present
  tense this recreates the situation for the
  reader further establishing our engagement with
  the persona and his experience.
• Symbolism bell symbol of noise rather than
  music.
• The chaos and panic bestowing the man are
  paramount now, and Stallworthy has built his
  highest suspense.

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your son is a mongol the doctor said

• What is your response to this statement?
• mongol word choice evokes shock from the
  reader.
• Consider the doctors actions prior to this. Do
  you think this is really what he would have said?
  Why do you think the persona heard these words?

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Dealing with the news

• As the sixth group begins, the narrator begins
  the final phase of the poem that of dealing
  with the news of his childs handicap.
• The stanzaic form for the poems remainder is
  consistently quatrains of a noticeable rhyme
  scheme and therefore rhythm has returned to what
  had been a scattered progression.
• The rhythm gives the impression that this man,
  stunned at hearing the doctors words, is pacing,
  evenly and in rhythm, and attempting for the last
  subdivision of the poem to assimilate everything
  that has happened.

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How easily the word went in - / clean as a
bullet / leaving no mark on the skin,/ stopping
the heart within it

• This simile sufficiently assumes total empathy
  form the reader.
• leaving no mark on the skin suggests that this
  is an internal pain. He is completely isolated in
  his injury which cannot be treated and cannot be
  appreciated by any other person.

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stopping the heart within it

• The pain strikes the persona so suddenly and so
  intensely, that it stops his heart instantly and
  any superficial response is irrelevant.
• The bullet symbolises instant death, and as the
  persona will express, this is precisely what he
  feels at this moment.

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This was my first death

• He affirms that all for which he has lived to
  this point has been destroyed.
• Death is a concept encompassing many elements,
  including the narrators likely feelings of cold,
  loneliness, numbness, terror and hopelessness.
• The idea of this being his first suggests two
  things that this is the first time he will die,
  the last being the end of his life, and also that
  since he has never encountered such a devastating
  situation, this is the first time he has ever
  known pain and sadness to this extent.

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studied the man below / as a pilot treading air

• So distraught is the persona that his spirit
  ascends from his body and he is able to look down
  upon his flesh.
• He compares himself to a jet pilot who has
  ejected and is treading air symbolic of the
  split-seconds ability to change power, vitality,
  and momentum into stagnation and vulnerability.
• This pilot, like the narrator, feels no pain.
• This may be from shock or from the physical abuse
  of the incident, but in either case, the metaphor
  is perfect.

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snapped wires radiant ends.

• The extended metaphor climaxes in effectiveness
  and poetic excellence.
• These wires, the reason for the pilots
  malfunction, represent a range of causes in the
  narrators personal experience.
• First, where technology is concerned, something
  such as wires failing in their purpose is so
  random and unpredictable, that no one can explain
  it.
• It is chaotic, a matter of microscopic
  imprecision, and this fraction of an inch may
  mean loss, perhaps of human life.
• This metaphor brilliantly includes the cruel
  selectiveness of fate, the unexplainable fraction
  of an inch which led to this infants life being
  intellectually limited for the duration of his
  life.
• Secondly, the metaphor if wires relates to the
  childs brain. So complex is the brain, that a
  person cannot possibly understand all of its
  functions and properties. This is well
  exemplified by a board of circuits, tangled and
  distinguishable to the extreme thaat, should one
  wire fail, to remedy the problem would be
  impossible, its effects on the system undeniable.

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buckled shell of his plane boot, glove and
helmet feeling no pain

• The persona lists items that were supposed to
  protect him from harm but are rendered useless
  due to the severity of the situation.

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Unfamiliar / the body of my late self / I
carried to the car

• This phrases imagery presents the man slouching,
  barely capable of movement in his sadness. It is
  the image of a broken man, who must summon all
  his energy to continue in with his now-empty
  life.
• The final line of the sixth section also declares
  that the mans body, already conceded to death,
  is unfamiliar to him.
• The euphemism is effective in evoking sympathy
  from the reader.
• He is frightened and confused, and from this
  point forward, he will be living as though within
  a dead, hollow shell.

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The hospital its heavy freight / lashed down
ship-shape ward over ward

• The final sub-section of Stallworthys The
  Almond Tree finds the persona reaching his
  climactic assertion of how he is to handle what
  has happened.
• It begins with the metaphor of a ship, the
  hospital, whose freight is the many patients
  within.
• Reminds the reader of his literal and
  metaphorical journey.
• ship-shape connotations of the monotonous
  routines within the wards of the hospital.

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steamed into night with some on board / soon to
be lost if the desperate / charts were known

• The desperate charts to which the persona
  refers are those of the stars fate which no
  one wholly understands nor can they control.
• The ship will lose some of its freight for no
  reason other than the cruelty of circumstance,
  the angry father affirms to himself.

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Others would come / altered to land or find the
land / altered.

• This observation seems to suggest that those who
  survived may find more difficulty than those who
  did not.
• The persona is referring to his son and the
  terrible fate with which he has been cursed his
  perspective of the world which he has been part
  of has been altered.
• The extended metaphor reminds us of his
  metaphorical journey from innocence and youth to
  one whose experience has provided him with the
  harsh reality of life.

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In a numbered cot / my son sailed from me never
to come / ashore my kingdom / speaking my
language

• The extended metaphor is continued.
• The father concedes his loss loss of hopes and
  dreams of the relationship which he had envisaged
  for he and his son, the birth of whom, he so
  eagerly anticipated.
• He and his son will never be united in the way he
  had intended.
• Rather, this childs course will run to another
  kingdom, another world, where the narrator does
  not understand.
• The reference to his kingdom is reminiscent of
  the idealistic fairytale that was created in the
  opening stanza of the poem. Therefore, the
  contrast between hopes and the reality is
  highlighted which compels us to sympathise with
  his anguish.
• This child will never speak the language of
  poetry and this may also be a source of deep
  pain.

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Better not look that way.

• This marks the turning point in the poem.
• He has had the highest hopes for his child,
  entertained the brightest predictions for his
  life, and now these hopes have been stifled.
• He has now conceded the circumstances, and has
  decided to move forward with his life, rather
  than to dwell in his present misery.

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The almond tree / was beautiful in labour.
Blood-/dark, quickening, bud after bud / split,
flower after flower shook free.

• The significance of the almond tree now becomes
  clear.
• Stallworthys most skilful deployment of
  symbolism is evident through the imagery of the
  tree.

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• Stallworthys writing is at its most complex in
  the following stanzas, as the speaker shifts
  frequently between himself and the almond tree.
• Through this symbolism he suggests a scene of
  childbirth.
• The reader appreciates the imagery of a mother
  giving birth, but by doing so, Stallworthy
  establishes a connection between the tree and the
  narrator.
• The tree, beautiful in labour, is something from
  which the man is learning the message of the poem.

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• Why do people often offer gifts of flowers?
• Consider how a flower develops. Ironically, the
  bud of a flower which is what we deem to be its
  most beautiful aspect is a sign of its maturity
  which very quickly leads to its death.
• Similarly, one can appreciate that the persona
  feels that, despite the fact that the splitting
  of each bud led to the death of his former self,
  this has actually enhanced his former self.

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On the darkening wind a pale / face floated. Out
of reach.

• This pale face is that of his son. On this ship,
  he is floating out to sea, out of reach of he who
  had loved him most.
• The connotations of his sons pale face that
  floated are that of ghostliness.

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Only when / the buds, all the buds, were broken
/ would the tree be in full sail.

• Immediately, the focus shifts back to the tree.
• The combination of ship and tree metaphors
  compound the complexity of the concept that
  losing is actually gaining.
• The tree is becoming more beautiful, more
  fulfilled, as it shakes free its flowers.
• Similarly, the persona, as he has lost something
  critical in his life, is becoming more complete,
  and in some way more beautiful, as well.
• The more painful the experience of the man, the
  more he will grow in wisdom and strength. Losing
  his son is a terrible experience but the persona
  admirably chooses to use this experience to grow
  in these ways.

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Trivia

• Perhaps Stallworthy is alluding to the
  Nietzschean view that what does not kill one,
  makes one stronger.
• Kanye West did not conceive this philosophy. Fact!

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In labour the tree was becoming / itself

• The tree is affirmed as a tree through its
  hardships and ultimately losing its flowers.
• The man is also becoming more of a man through
  the pain of his sons disability.

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I too, rooted in earth / and ringed by darkness,
from the death / of myself saw myself blossoming

• He as become a greater person because of his
  experience. His spiritual death has catalysed a
  spiritual rebirth.
• rooted suggests that he is now feels a sense of
  permanence in this world perhaps due to his
  responsibilities rather than in a magical land
  in a fairytale.
• ringed by darkness effectively illustrates the
  wisdom which he now beholds. As trees mature the
  rings within the trunk reflect their age and
  associated wisdom.

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wrenched from the caul of my thirty/ years
growing, fathered by son,/ unkindly in a kind
season/ by love shattered and set free.

• He has accepted his fate, and that of his son,
  and he feels free in an ironic way.
• fathered by my son means that it his child who
  has given him wisdom who has taught him. He has
  escaped from his life of conventional growing
  and has now truly grown as a person.
• The irony in this final stanza implies the
  contrast between his enlightenment and the
  blindness with which he has travelled through
  life thus far.
• The persona, broken and symbolically destroyed by
  his sons condition, has been resurrected by
  faith in the natural cycle and an appreciation
  for spiritual growth.
• Through all of his emotional changes the narrator
  has concluded his reflection with an enlightened
  perspective and moral.

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The Almond Tree?

• Throughout the poem, the almond tree appears
  frequently, though not directly within the plot.
• Early in the work, the man parks beneath its
  shadowy branches, and the tree is protecting him
  in this way.
• Later, upon his ascension from his physical
  being, it is the tree which calls him back to
  earth, back to life.
• Finally, as the poem concludes, the almond tree
  teaches the man what he needs to learn regarding
  his perspective of life and how to manage his
  emotions.

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Symbolism

• While the tree plays no pure role throughout the
  poem it is a constant symbol on many levels.
• First, a tree cannot act, cannot voice opinion or
  defend itself. Therefore, a tree is at the mercy
  of its environment or, from its fate. In this
  way, it symbolises the role of fate in the mans
  life, and his helplessness in changing it.

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• The almond tree also symbolises nature and its
  processes. When it calls the man to earth, it is
  signalling that nature is beautiful, and even
  when its random tragedies occur, one must accept
  it as one aspect of an infinitely large and
  superior cycle.

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• Finally, the tree symbolises strength and
  perseverance, as it inspires the narrator to
  re-evaluate his situation and to make the
  decision to continue on, rather to surrender to
  his sadness.
• The almond tree, though passive, delivers some of
  the most powerful messages throughout the poem.

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Summary

• The Almond Tree, by Jon Stallworthy, is an
  outstanding composition.
• His use of symbolism, irony, rhythm, and diction
  is excellent in expressing a range of emotions.
  Furthermore, he conveys strong messages through
  these techniques, all of which the reader absorbs
  into his or her own life, as these are messages
  which affect all people.
• The trees presence throughout the work is
  exceptionally special as it represents so many
  ideas.
• Overall, Stallworthys poem is outstanding , and
  it is successful in conveying every complex human
  emotion and understanding to its reader.