The Full Text of “Climbing My Grandfather”
The Full Text of “Climbing My Grandfather”
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“Climbing My Grandfather” Introduction
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"Climbing my Grandfather" is a poem by British poet Andrew Waterhouse. The poem is told from a first-person perspective and sees its speaker climbing up their grandfather, as though the latter were a mountain. It's a treacherous, unpredictable climb, but the speaker is attentive and observant, eventually making it to the summit—the grandfather's head. It's here that the speaker can sense the "slow pulse of [the grandfather's] good heart," suggesting that the poem is about reclaiming a certain memory or feeling of emotional connection and warmth. It is one of a number of Waterhouse poems that takes a look at family relationships—though unfortunately his total output is rather small given his death by suicide at the age of 42 (in 2001).
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“Climbing My Grandfather” Summary
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I decide to free climb, without any safety equipment. I start at my grandfather's worn-out old shoes, which are covered in dust and cracks in their leather, and then pull myself up to his trousers, pushing into their woven texture to find a hold. When I get to his tucked-in shirt, which hangs loosely over his waste, I change direction along the belt and arrive at my grandfather's dirt-caked hand. His nails are cracked but are easy to grip, while his finger's skin is smooth and dense like ice warmed up. When I get to his arm, I chance upon a pale scar, like the ridge of a mountain; placing my feet carefully in the stitches, I keep moving. On his shoulder, which is still strong, I take a breather, resting in the shade. I don't look down, because it's dangerous to look down from this high up. I then gather myself and head up to the loose skin of my grandfather's neck. Once I get to his smiling mouth, I drink water next to his teeth. Feeling rejuvenated, I head across his rough cheek and look into his brown eyes. I see a pupil opening and closing slowly. Once over the forehead and its wrinkles, which are far apart and easy to navigate, I arrive at my grandfather's thick mop of hair (soft and white because of how high up it is), before finally arriving at the summit. Here, I catch my breath, lying back to watch the clouds and birds in the air. I can feel my grandfather's body warmth, and the gentle beat of his good heart.
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“Climbing My Grandfather” Themes
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Childhood, Adulthood, and Familial Love
In “Climbing my Grandfather,” a first-person speaker climbs up the body of their grandfather, starting at the feet before finally coming to a rest on the head. Using extended metaphor, the poem imagines the grandfather as a mountain, with the speaker doing their best to make the at-times difficult journey to the top. Through this idea, the poem explores the tender relationship between a grandchild and their grandfather, and in doing so the poem also turns the grandfather into a kind of mythic figure that captures how the young often look up—literally and metaphorically—to the old.
Though the poem never specifies the age of the speaker, the surreal difference in size between the climbing speaker and their mountain-like grandfather calls to mind the way adults are perceived by children. Through its carefully constructed metaphor, the poem investigates this sense of largeness and smallness. The poem builds its unusual sense of scale right from the opening. The speaker describes their grandfather’s “brogues”—a relatively old fashioned type of shoe—as "dusty and cracked," like boulders at the foot of a mountain. These adjectives conjure a sense of old age, and the speaker’s close focus on the specific details of the grandfather’s appearance suggests the intense physical impression the grandfather made on the speaker in the first place.
In lines 3-7, the speaker continues this focus on the clothes of the grandfather. The speaker climbs up the trousers, the “overhanging shirt,” and then the belt. This detailed focus on different items of clothing suggests the way adults can seem mysterious to children, as though they are dressed in clothes from another world. It also captures the way that children are both focused on and interested in the physical details of the world, in a way that many adults no longer are.
Furthermore, the methodical listing of the clothes suggests that the child observes the grandfather from a particular kind of vantage point, one in which the sheer sense of scale allows for the child-speaker’s intense focus on each item. There is a sense, too, that the speaker knows these objects in part because of the close affection shared between the speaker and their grandfather. As these details are remembered in the poem's metaphorical climb, the reader gets the sense that the relationship between the two characters was close and physically affectionate.
From line 9 onwards, the poem develops this sense of affection while also continuing to explore the unusual sense of scale between a child and adult. Indeed, these lines focus on aspects of the grandfather’s body—rather than clothes—which creates a sense of loving intimacy. This focus also creates an image of a child really studying the physical presence of their beloved and interesting grandfather, and of the loving grandfather allowing the child to conduct such study.
One of these bodily details is especially telling: in line 11 the speaker climbs past his grandfather’s scar. A scar could well be the kind of thing that a child fixates on, something that they ask their grandparent about. The scar also humanizes the grandfather, giving this man described only through clothes and physical features a history—something must have happened, after all, to result in a scar. The scar, then, amplifies both the close connection between the child and grandfather and also the way that, to the child, the grandfather’s past is an amazing, mysterious thing.
The speaker can only rest after reaching the summit: the grandfather’s soft white hair. At this moment, the poem candidly reveals its main subject. The speaker, breathless, lies on the grandfather’s head, “feeling his heat, knowing / the slow pulse of his good heart.” In other words, the climb’s purpose has been to reconnect with the affection of the grandfather: to feel the “heat” of his love. The “pulse” of the heart also reinforces the importance of this child-adult connection, suggesting the shared love between the two.
"Climbing my Grandfather," then, presents a surreal but moving portrait of a loving relationship between a child and their grandfather. Though there is the sense that, now speaking from adulthood, the speaker is trying to reclaim something that has been forever lost, there is also the strong impression that the shared love between the two can never be lost. The poem is a memorial to what can never be lost, and the act of creating the poem is itself a way to preserve that familial love and connection.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 2-7
- Lines 10-12
- Lines 18-27
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Memory
“Climbing my Grandfather” is a profound exploration of the way that memory works. Through imagining (or imaginatively remembering) climbing the grandfather—as though he were a mountain—the speaker strives to bring a memory of their grandfather back into vivid and vibrant color. The poem implicitly argues that memory requires a kind of effort—that memories have to be kept actively alive. By imaginatively reconstructing the grandfather as a mountain, the speaker brings him into sharp focus—and, further, keeps the memory of the grandfather, of the speaker as a young child, and of the relationship between the two alive.
The poem centers around one main extended metaphor: the grandfather as a climbable mountain. Through this metaphor, the poem examines the way that memory works, and how people relate to memories. From the beginning, climbing the grandfather is portrayed as something that requires effort. Indeed, it takes bravery too—that’s why the speaker decides to “do it free,” without the safety of guide ropes or nets. Throughout the poem, the climb is characterized as physically tough, requiring focus and determination. And it’s through this effort that the speaker is able to remember details about their grandfather—how he dressed, the shape and texture of his skin, and his moral goodness (“the slow pulse of his good heart”).
And given that “the slow pulse of his good heart” is what awaits the speaker at the summit, it’s fair to say that this is the ultimate goal of the climb. The speaker metaphorically brings their grandfather back to life through the intensity of imagination and memory. Indeed, the existence of the poem is itself part of the implicit argument that memory requires care and attention. The poem is a memorial to the grandfather, and the imaginative work needed to create the poem is mirrored in the description of the physical effort necessary to climb to the top.
The poem also explores the nature of memory, and what memory can achieve, through ambiguity. Most critically, it’s unclear from the poem whether the speaker’s “climbing” of the grandfather is purely an imaginative effort and a metaphor for closely attempting to remember the grandfather, or whether the speaker is actually remembering times when the speaker really would clamber and climb around the grandfather’s body.
If it is a memory of actual events, it is nonetheless an imaginatively augmented memory. It seems unlikely that the speaker either ended up lying on top of the grandfather’s head, or that the speaker paid such clear attention to each detail of the grandfather’s body. But this also speaks to the nature of memory, which is almost never a pure and accurate reproduction of an event—and sometimes can exist regarding an event that never even took place! All memory is changed and augmented by time, and even by the act of remembering.
In fact, the very fact of the clarity of this memory seems to imply that the speaker engages with the memory often, that the speaker regularly visits the grandfather through this memory—just as the speaker, likely, regularly climbed on the grandfather as a child. The poem, then, seems to suggest that memory, like the remembered grandfather, is a thing to climb; that it requires effort, attention, and engagement, and in turn can offer comfort, connection, and even the “slow pulse” of life to those things that have been lost.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-27
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Climbing My Grandfather”
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Lines 1-4
I decide to ...
... get a grip.The poem opens by making clear that the "Climbing" of the title, though unusually combined with "Grandfather," does relate to a kind of mountain climb. The speaker feels that it is important to make this climb "free, without a rope or net." That is, they see what is coming as something that requires effort, an element of risk, and determination.
The fact that the poem opens with the first person singular pronoun, "I," makes it clear that this is a personal poem—one in which the speaker will attempt metaphorically to explore the memory of their grandfather through the imagery of a mountain climb. And though perhaps it is not revealed yet, the reader gets the sense that the speaker sees this as an important mission worthy of undertaking.
The climb itself, then, begins at the base: the grandfather's shoes. These shoes are a "dusty and cracked" pair of brogues, which are a rather old-fashioned shoe (signaling the grandfather's age). The phrase "dusty and cracked" also hints at the way memories deteriorate and change. Indeed, part of the poem's purpose is to keep this particular memory fresh and vivid, even if it is surreally adapted to the imagery of a mountain climb.
The sibilance in line 2 has a dusty sound to it, which is picked up in line 3 and creates a sense of slipperiness—though this is still the easiest part of the climb:
First, the old brogues, dusty and cracked;
an easy scramble onto his trousersIn these first few lines, the speaker focuses their attention on the clothing of the grandfather, partly because the speaker has not yet reached high enough to find the grandfather's features, but also because this is the way that memory works. That is, certain details come back first, and show the way to the more intimate and affectionate aspects of a memory (ultimately, the grandfather's face and "the slow pulse of his good heart").
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Lines 5-10
By the overhanging ...
... like warm ice. -
Lines 10-12
On his arm ...
... and move on. -
Lines 13-20
At his still ...
... open and close. -
Lines 20-27
Then up over ...
... his good heart.
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“Climbing My Grandfather” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Assonance
Assonance is used sparingly in "Climbing My Grandfather." This spare but precise usage helps the poem evoke its delicately calibrated imagery.
A good example is in line 7. Here, the poem employs the long /a/ (italics) and short /a/ (bold):
to an earth-stained hand. The nails
The assonance is cleverly used here. The line describes markings on the grandfather's hand, evidence of some aspect of how he lived his life (perhaps gardening). The line is literally stained by these similar sounds, conveying the image in sound.
Another example is the shared /i/ sound is line 9:
the skin of his finger is smooth and thick
The sound here is short and quick, evoking a kind of narrowness that fits with the description of a finger (and with "smooth" skin).
That example contrasts well with the longer /e/ vowels in line 18:
Refreshed, I cross the screed cheek,
The speaker here has to travel horizontally rather than vertically, and the long vowels give a stretched sound that, read left to right, seems to match with this horizontality.
Another example of assonance is in "birds circle" (line 25). This is a pretty subtle moment, but perhaps helps to evoke the circular movement of the birds by repeating the same sound in quick succession.
In general, the poem uses assonance to capture the carefulness with which the speaker climbs the grandfather, observing every image with precision and traversing as gently as possible.
Where assonance appears in the poem:- Line 1: “o,” “o,” “i,” “i”
- Line 2: “o,” “o”
- Line 3: “a,” “a”
- Line 4: “i,” “i,” “i”
- Line 5: “a,” “a”
- Line 7: “a,” “ai,” “a,” “ai”
- Line 8: “i,” “i”
- Line 9: “i,” “i,” “i,” “i,” “i”
- Line 10: “i,” “i,” “i,” “i”
- Line 11: “ee”
- Line 12: “y”
- Line 13: “i,” “i”
- Line 16: “i,” “i”
- Line 17: “ee”
- Line 18: “e,” “ee,” “ee”
- Line 19: “i,” “i”
- Line 20: “o,” “o,” “o,” “o”
- Line 22: “i,” “i,” “a”
- Line 23: “a,” “i,” “a,” “i”
- Line 25: “i,” “i”
- Line 26: “o”
- Line 27: “o”
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Caesura
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Consonance
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Extended Metaphor
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Enjambment
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End-Stopped Line
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Sibilance
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Simile
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"Climbing My Grandfather" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Brogues
- Scramble
- Trousers
- Weave
- Traverse
- Ridge
- Screed Cheek
- Summit
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(Location in poem: Line 2: “brogues”)
Brogues are a relatively old-fashioned type of shoe. They are usually leather and have a formal appearance.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Climbing My Grandfather”
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Form
"Climbing My Grandfather" is notable for its apparent lack of form. This, of course, is not some oversight on the poet's behalf. Waterhouse intentionally opts for one single block of writing, feeling that this is a better container for the poem's content than a more conventional stanza form.
There's good reasoning behind this. The poem has one central idea throughout, which is the reimagining of climbing the grandfather figure as an actual mountain climb. A mountain climb can be prepared for, but by its nature it's a risky and unpredictable venture. Weather can change, and the terrain itself is constantly changing and may not match up with what's on the maps—so the climber has to be observant, attentive, and respectful of their environment. And, of course, a mountain is an intensely solid and imposing figure.
Accordingly, the poem takes on this mountainous form, the lack of stanza breaks reflecting the solidity of the natural structure. This also helps the poem's phrases feel unpredictable in terms of where they start and end, an effect aided by caesura, enjambment, and end-stopping. This makes the poem unfold in stages that are hard to predict, evoking the way that a mountain climb must be done section by section, adapting its path as the terrain changes.
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Meter
"Climbing my Grandfather" does not have a single dominant metrical scheme. Rather, it's written in free verse. That said, it does use the careful placement of stresses to bring its language to life.
The first line gives the impression that the poem will be metrically regular, reading as a line of iambs with an extra first syllable:
I | decide | to do | it free, | without | a rope | or net.
This initial regularity reflects the speaker's mindset. They have made a decision and intend to proceed with determination and purpose, and the forward momentum of the stresses reflects this. However, because the climb itself—as climbing a mountain would be—contains a high degree of risk and unpredictability, the poem refuses to continue with this metrical regularity.
Instead, the poem uses this irregularity to its advantage, deploying stress in a way that helps capture each line's meaning. Look at line 13, for instance:
At his still firm shoulder, I rest for a while
Here, the bunching of stresses in the first half of the line emphasize the firmness of the shoulder, while the two unstressed syllables in "for a while" capture a feeling of rest amid the strenuousness of mountain climbing. Each line of the poem thus engages in its own way with stress, heightening the specific images it evokes.
There is an interesting metrical effect in the final line:
the slow pulse of his good heart.
Here, the two stress pairs evoke the sound of a heart beating—which is exactly the sound that the speaker is listening to. Ending on this reveals that, most likely, this was the purpose of the climb in the first place—to hear the grandfather's heart, and to imaginatively bring him back to life. The sound of the line allows the reader to hear it too.
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Rhyme Scheme
"Climbing My Grandfather" is an unrhymed poem. Accordingly, there isn't much to say about rhyme here! It's worth noting, though, that the decision to not include rhyme is part of the way that the poem evokes the perilous nature of the climb and the mountainous grandfather himself. Just as a mountain has unpredictable terrain, so too the poem refuses to offer up any sense of false regularity through rhyme. Instead, the poem employs rougher, subtler, and more unpredictable sonic effects to achieve a sense of music. That is, its use of devices like assonance and consonance, along with the erratic stresses of its free verse, captures a kind of rocky musicality in line with the poem's imagery.
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“Climbing My Grandfather” Speaker
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The poem is told entirely in the first person. In the first line, the speaker informs the reader of the decision to climb the grandfather, and the rest of the poem tells the story of that mission. Ultimately, the speaker realizes their goal by reaching the summit—the grandfather's head. It's here that the speaker can bask in the bodily and emotional warmth of their grandfather, which is, most likely, the whole reason behind the climb in the first place.
Of course, this is not a literal poem. It's central idea and sense of scale are intentionally surreal and a little disorientating. But it seems that, in a way, this is the point. The speaker must take action to climb the grandfather, suggesting that memories too require deliberate effort and care. After all, in some sense, memories keep people alive who are no longer around. Accordingly, the speaker proceeds with a quiet but strong determination, paying close attention to their surroundings while also refusing to linger in one place too long, until they reach the top.
Through this, the poem reveals an intimate and loving connection between the speaker and the grandfather. It's not clear whether this poem is based on an actual memory of climbing into the grandfather's lap as a child, or is just part of an imaginative take on the relationship. Either way, it speaks to the way that children and adults perceive the world differently, the speaker literally and figuratively looking up to their elderly relative.
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“Climbing My Grandfather” Setting
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"Climbing my Grandfather" has a very distinct and surreal setting. On a basic level, the setting is the grandfather himself. But this is part of the poem's overall extended metaphor, in which remembering the grandfather is compared to an actual mountain climb. Accordingly, the setting is both the grandfather and the typical terrain of mountaineering.
The poem's setting unfolds as the poem itself progresses. The speaker has one mission—to get to the top—and the poem tells that story largely through environmental details. The poem thus starts at the grandfather's "base camp": his shoes. The speaker then works their way up the trousers, the shirt, across the belt; then the hands, an unexpected scar, and on to the shoulders; arriving at the mouth, the speaker takes a drink of water as though from a mountain spring, before eventually making the final leg of the journey over the forehead and onto the summit.
At the summit—the grandfather's head—the speaker is able to relax, enjoying the view and also, most importantly, sensing the "heat" of the grandfather. It's here that the speaker can perceive the "slow pulse of [the grandfather's] good heart." This reveals that this was probably the purpose of the climb: to reconnect with the emotional warmth that the grandfather represents. Because this is such an imaginative poem, it's also fair to say that the setting is, in part, the speaker's memory and imagination.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Climbing My Grandfather”
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Literary Context
Andrew Waterhouse was British poet and musician born in 1958. His first full-length collection, IN, was not published until 2000, but it won the prestigious Forward Prize for best first collection. The collection focuses on many of the themes found in this particular poem, including family relationships and the natural world. Waterhouse lived in the north of England and was a keen geographer and environmentalist. Sadly, his career was cut short when he died by suicide in 2001, and the poetry world mourned the writing that would never come to be.
Waterhouse was active at a time of a resurgent (and continuing) public interest in poetry. Other important poets affiliated with Waterhouse include Sean O'Brien, Simon Armitage, and Linda France. But in his focus on the natural world, Waterhouse is part of a long-standing poetic tradition. A fair comparison can be made with the work of Robert Frost, though Waterhouse's poetry is less formally and metrically regular. In the focus on the rural British environment, Waterhouse also shares a similar approach to Alice Oswald. To read more of this kind of thing, Owen Sheer's anthology, A Poet's Guide to Britain, is a good place to start.
Historical Context
Andrew Waterhouse grew up in the latter half of the 20th century. This was a time of increasing material wealth in the West, but also of deepening inequality. Most gravely, it's over the recent decades that humankind has started to face up to the potential catastrophe of climate change. Accordingly, Waterhouse's poetry seems rooted in a kind of global environmental anxiety—though perhaps less so in this particular poem. Regardless, the close attention to geological features in the poem shows a strong interest in the natural world.
The 1970's were especially important in the development of the environmental movement, as people increasingly took a stand against the perceived inaction of successive governments to take the climate threat seriously (a battle that is, of course, still ongoing). Friends of the Earth, a prominent campaign group, was founded in 1971, and is still one of the loudest voices in the climate movement. More recently, London's streets were brought to a standstill by the Extinction Rebellion movement, with the young Greta Thunberg becoming a figurehead.
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More “Climbing My Grandfather” Resources
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External Resources
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More Thoughts on Waterhouse — Libby Brooks talks about Waterhouse's life, work, and death.
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Thoughts on Waterhouse and His Poetry — A thoughtful piece about Waterhouse and his work by Helena Nelson.
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A Reading of "Climbing My Grandfather" — "Climbing My Grandfather" read aloud.
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Waterhouse's Obituary — A piece on Waterhouse in the British newspaper The Guardian.
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