Catrin Summary & Analysis
by Gillian Clarke

Catrin Summary & Analysis
by Gillian Clarke

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"Catrin," by the Welsh poet Gillian Clarke, is a poem about the deep bond—and conflict—between a mother and daughter. The poem's speaker, Clarke herself, recalls the day she gave birth to her daughter, Catrin, in an austere hospital room, describing this process as a painful, messy "struggle to become two" separate human beings. This struggle lingers into the present day of the poem, as a now older Catrin defiantly asks her mother to stay out later and Clarke once again feels the sharp tug of the love that will forever tether her to her child. The poem illuminates the difficulty and necessity of letting children become more independent as they grow older. "Catrin" was published in Clarke's second poetry collection, The Sundial, in 1978.

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