Carol Ann Duffy's "Mean Time" is a poem about heartache, regret, and the relentless passage of time. The poem's speaker, mourning a recent breakup, walks down a dark, rainy street in the middle of autumn, after the clocks have been turned back for daylight savings time. The speaker laments their inability to wind the clocks back even further in order to undo a bitter argument with their former lover. Instead, they know that the days are only going shorter and the nights longer—a reflection of their own inescapable sorrow. Duffy published "Mean Time" in her 1993 poetry collection of the same name.
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The Full Text of “Mean Time”
The Full Text of “Mean Time”
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“Mean Time” Summary
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“Mean Time” Themes
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The Pain of Lost Love and Regret
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-12
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Time and Mortality
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2
- Lines 13-16
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Mean Time”
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Lines 1-4
The clocks slid ...
... mourning our love. -
Lines 5-8
And, of course, ...
... all our mistakes. -
Lines 9-12
If the darkening ...
... heard you say. -
Lines 13-16
But we will ...
... the endless nights.
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“Mean Time” Symbols
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Light
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2: “The clocks slid back an hour / and stole light from my life”
- Lines 13-14: “But we will be dead, as we know, / beyond all light.”
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Darkness
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2: “The clocks slid back an hour / and stole light from my life”
- Line 9: “the darkening sky”
- Lines 14-16: “beyond all light. / These are the shortened days / and the endless nights.”
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“Mean Time” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Personification
Where personification appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2: “The clocks slid back an hour / and stole light from my life”
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Parallelism
Where parallelism appears in the poem:- Line 11: “have said”
- Line 12: “have heard”
- Lines 15-16: “the shortened days / and the endless nights.”
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Assonance
Where assonance appears in the poem:- Line 2: “light,” “life”
- Line 3: “walked,” “wrong”
- Line 5: “unmendable”
- Line 6: “fell,” “bleak,” “streets”
- Line 7: “felt,” “gnaw”
- Line 8: “all”
- Line 10: “day”
- Line 12: “say”
- Line 14: “light”
- Line 16: “nights”
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Enjambment
Where enjambment appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2: “hour / and”
- Lines 2-3: “life / as”
- Lines 5-6: “rain / fell”
- Lines 6-7: “treets / where”
- Lines 7-8: “gnaw / at”
- Lines 9-10: “lift / more”
- Lines 10-11: “day / there”
- Lines 11-12: “said / nor”
- Lines 15-16: “days / and”
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Consonance
Where consonance appears in the poem:- Line 1: “clocks,” “slid,” “back”
- Line 2: “stole,” “light,” “life”
- Line 4: “love”
- Line 5: “unmendable”
- Line 6: “fell,” “bleak”
- Line 7: “felt”
- Line 9: “darkening,” “sky,” “could”
- Line 10: “day”
- Line 11: “words,” “would”
- Line 12: “have,” “heard”
- Line 13: “But,” “we,” “will,” “dead,” “we”
- Line 14: “beyond”
- Line 15: “shortened,” “days”
- Line 16: “endless”
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“Mean Time” 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.
- The clocks slid back an hour
- Unmendable
- Bleak
- Gnaw
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(Location in poem: Line 1: “The clocks slid back an hour”)
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Mean Time”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“Mean Time” Speaker
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“Mean Time” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “Mean Time”
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More “Mean Time” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poet's Life — Check out a Poetry Foundation biography of Carol Ann Duffy.
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A Review of Mean Time — Check out a review of the collection in which "Mean Time" was published.
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A Lincoln Review Conversation — An interview in which Duffy speaks about her poetry and recites several of her poems.
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Poems About Breakups and Heartbreak — A Book Riot roundup of 25 poems about partings of the heart.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Carol Ann Duffy
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