The Full Text of “Catrin”
The Full Text of “Catrin”
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“Catrin” Introduction
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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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“Catrin” Summary
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The speaker tells her daughter that she (the speaker) remembers her on the day she gave birth. The speaker was standing in a hot, sterile hospital room, looking out the window at people and cars crossing the street. She remembers the intensity of this first fraught encounter with her daughter and the way they struggled over the umbilical cord, a metaphorical "rope of love" connecting them. The hospital room was a sterile, empty box, cleaned of any decorations or toys. The speaker says that she covered the walls with her "words" (perhaps a reference to her shouts in labor), as though frantically scribbling all over those pristine, white squares as she and her daughter struggled to separate from each other (i.e., as she gave birth). Their cries were their ways of declaring that they each wanted to be their own person.
Neither the speaker nor her daughter won or lost that first conflict in the hospital, which felt like a glass tank made murky by emotion. But the day transformed both of them. Even now, the speaker struggles with her intense attachment to her daughter, who is standing there with her beautiful brown hair and her flushed, rebellious scowl. Her mere presence makes the speaker again feel the tug of that cord that once connected them, and which now constricts about her life, leaving feelings of both love and frustration in its wake, as her daughter asks her if she can stay out skating for a little longer.
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“Catrin” Themes
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Mother-Daughter Closeness and Conflict
In "Catrin," poet Gillian Clarke addresses her real-life daughter, marveling at the complexity of the bond between them. The speaker recalls the day she gave birth to her daughter, that "first / Fierce confrontation" in which mother and baby fought "to become separate." Years later, she realizes this battle is still ongoing. As her daughter asks to "skate / In the dark" a little longer, the speaker feels torn between wanting to protect this person—who is still very much a part of her—and honoring her growing need for independence. The poem thus conveys the enduring intensity of this mother-daughter bond, which is marked by "love and conflict" as both parties "struggle" to be their own person. This struggle can never be "won nor lost," just as the bond between the speaker and her daughter can never be broken.
The speaker presents giving birth to her daughter as a moment of simultaneous connection and "confrontation." On the day she gave birth, she and her daughter fought over "the tight / Red rope of love" (i.e., the umbilical cord) linking them. Even so early in their relationship, the speaker characterized their dynamic as a "struggle to become / separate." Though she already loved her daughter, nine months of inhabiting the same body takes its toll, and by this point, both mother and daughter were desperate "To be two." The baby wanted to be born, and the mother wanted her own body back.
The cutting of the "rope" between mother and child marked their first separation—but this separation was purely a physical one. Emotionally, their bond persists, and grows more complicated, with age.
Indeed, as the speaker argues with her daughter in the present, she feels warring impulses to keep her daughter close and let her "be separate." She says that neither she nor her daughter "won" or "lost" that first battle; instead, it "changed [them] both." As such, the speaker still finds herself "fighting / [her daughter] off." This phrase suggests the frustration and fear of being so close to another person that everything they do impacts you as if they were part of your own body.
In the poem, this struggle takes the form of the daughter "Defiant[ly]" asking to stay out late, "skat[ing] / In the dark." This "dark" seems to symbolize the unknown: all the unforeseen ways in which the daughter will grow apart from her mother, as well as all the potential danger that awaits her outside her mother's protection. Thus, the speaker is filled with "love and conflict" as she worries about her daughter’s safety. She can feel the "old rope" between them "Tightening" around her, suggesting that loving someone this much can feel almost suffocating. At the same time, she clearly understands the importance of letting her daughter grow up and live her own life.
The poem doesn't bring this conflict to a resolution, or even pretend that there is one. Instead, it suggests that intergenerational "love and conflict" are inseparable from each other, as if braided in the same connecting "rope." It portrays the extreme feelings that arise between mothers and daughters as they experience both deep closeness and a deep need for independence.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-9
- Lines 16-17
- Lines 18-29
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Parenthood and Transformation
"Catrin" illustrates not just the enduring bond between a mother and daughter, but also the transformative nature of parenthood itself: something that the poem implies makes life messier and more complicated, but also more vivid and thrilling.
The speaker frames childbirth as both a trauma and a creative event, one that filled the austere space around her. While she was in labor, the speaker says, she was in a "square / Environmental blank," a hospital room empty of "paintings or toys." In other words, there was nothing interesting or even human about this empty, clinical space. The image of "people and cars" moving outside the room's window emphasizes the sterility of the world inside this room—at least, before the speaker's daughter enters the world.
The poem's speaker recalls that, in giving birth to her daughter, she wrote "All over the walls—a metaphor for her shouts and moans during labor. That labor—its pain, pacing, mess, etc.—also "coloured the clean squares" of the hospital room with "wild, tender circles." Becoming a parent transformed the room, making it messier and wilder—less clean and clinical, but also more vibrantly alive. Not incidentally, these images echo those of little kids scribbling all over the walls of their parent's homes. Likewise, the earlier mention of "paintings or toys" calls to mind playthings lying about or fingerpaints hung up on a family fridge. Becoming a parent, the poem suggests, makes the world more frustrating, colorful, and interesting all at once.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 9-16
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Catrin”
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Lines 1-5
I can remember ...
... the traffic lights.The speaker of the poem is the poet, Gillian Clarke, herself. Clarke opens the poem by addressing her real-life daughter, Catrin, directly (Catrin is "you" throughout the poem) and describing the day she gave birth.
She doesn't come right out and say that she's in labor in these lines, however, and it takes a beat to become clear that this is indeed what's happening. The speaker doesn't say "I can remember giving birth to you." Instead, she says, "I can remember you, child," making it sound like her daughter is already there; she already has a strong presence alongside the speaker in this "hot, white / Room," despite not being born yet. Calling her daughter "child" also establishes the speaker's authority over her daughter (which will make more sense at the poem's end, when readers realize that the speaker is reminiscing about all this after her daughter has asked to stay out later).
This "hot, white / Room" refers to a hospital room—a space with white, sterile walls. This room is hot, perhaps, because the speaker is warm from the effort of labor—or maybe the building's ventilation system isn't up to snuff. Either way, this imagery doesn't make the room seem like a comfortable, welcoming space where one would want to hang out for too long.
Adding to the tension is the fact that the speaker recalls standing, rather than lying in a hospital bed. It sounds like she's still in the relatively early stages of labor at this point, or that her labor has been going on for some time. In any case, she's able to walk around as she waits for the baby's arrival to become more imminent.
She remembers looking out of the room's "window" at the streets below, filled with both people and traffic. Normal life is happening outside of the room, while the speaker remains stuck within, waiting to be transformed by one of the most important events of her life.
The crisp /t/ alliteration and consonance of these opening lines make them sound sharp and spiky: "stood," "hot, white," "watching," "taking / Turns at the traffic lights." All in all, readers get the sense that the speaker was uncomfortable, anxious, and perhaps a bit excited as she waits for her daughter to arrive.
A free verse poem, "Catrin" doesn't follow a rhyme scheme or regular meter. It also features quite a bit of enjambment, as in lines 2-5 here:
As I stood in a hot, white
Room at the window watching
The people and cars taking
Turn at the traffic lights.The poem snakes down the page, evoking the smooth flow of the speaker's thoughts, the fluid bond between mother and child, and the relentless forward pull of time.
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Lines 6-9
I can remember ...
... Fought over. -
Lines 9-13
It was a ...
... Words, -
Lines 13-17
coloured the clean ...
... to be ourselves. -
Lines 18-24
Neither won nor ...
... Defiant glare, -
Lines 24-29
bringing up ...
... one more hour.
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“Catrin” Symbols
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The Dark
Literally, "the dark" that the speaker mentions at the end of the poem refers to the night: the speaker's daughter wants to stay out a little later. More broadly, this darkness might symbolize the unknown and the dangers of growing up. The speaker's instinct is to shield her daughter from all the potential perils that lurk in this darkness. At the same time, she knows she can't actually protect her daughter forever. Trusting her daughter to make good decisions even when she can't see her is an essential part of her becoming her own person—someone "separate" from the speaker herself.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 28-29: “As you ask may you skate / In the dark, for one more hour.”
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“Catrin” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Repetition
Repetition calls attention to important images and ideas in the poem. For example, lines 1 and 6 feature anaphora: both begin with the phrase "I can remember you." This repetition firmly grounds the first stanza in the speaker's past. Later, readers will learn that the speaker is looking back on this scene from the present, as her now older daughter stands before her; the phrase "I can remember you" collapses the space between the present and past, reflecting that, to the speaker, her daughter will always be her baby.
At the same time, and somewhat paradoxically, the repetition of this phrase hammers home the speaker's sense of her child as a separate person. Note how she doesn't say, "I can remember giving birth to you." Instead, the speaker immediately talks about her daughter as though she were an independent being before she's even physically separated from the speaker's body. The speaker doesn't just remember going through labor, she remembers her child herself.
Lines 16-17 contain both anaphora and more general parallelism:
[...] We want, we shouted,
To be two, to be ourselves.Repetition makes the language more intense, in turn evoking the intense emotions of the speaker and the child both as they get ready to "confront[]" each other for the first time. This phrase sounds a bit like a tongue twister, which is intentional: the words seem to bleed together, evoking the ties that bind mother to daughter even as they want to be separate. (Note how "two" is a homonym of "to," making the language sound even more twisty and repetitive!) Both "we" and "to be"—words related to existence—appear twice. The use of repetition reflects the fact that there are two unique people here—two "we"s" and two "to be"s—while, ironically, reflecting how in sync mother and child are even as they are straining to "become separate."
Where repetition appears in the poem:- Line 1: “I can remember you,”
- Line 6: “I can remember you,”
- Line 8: “rope”
- Line 9: “square”
- Line 13: “squares”
- Line 16: “We,” “we”
- Line 17: “To be,” “to be”
- Line 25: “rope”
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Metaphor
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Imagery
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Alliteration
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Enjambment
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"Catrin" 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.
- Confrontation
- Red rope of love
- Environmental blank
- The glass tank
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(Location in poem: Lines 6-7: “our first / Fierce confrontation”)
A hostile meeting. The speaker's first encounter with her daughter is a tense one, and it feels as though they're at odds from the moment she's born.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Catrin”
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Form
"Catrin" consists of 29 lines, which are divided into two stanzas. The first, slightly longer stanza describes the speaker's memory of the day she gave birth to her daughter. The second stanza takes place years later, in the poem's present, as the speaker is again facing off with her daughter (this time over the daughter's desire to stay out after dark).
Visually, the separation of the poem into two stanzas mirrors the speaker's longing for, and fear of, "separat[ion]" from her daughter. Mother and daughter both long "to be [themselves]" even while being bound together by "love"—much as the poem is two distinct stanzas that, together, comprise the poem as a whole.
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Meter
For the most part, "Catrin" doesn't use a clear, regular meter. The poem's language is modern, loose, and intimate, relying on frequent enjambment to evoke the sense of "separation" that the speaker describes.
That said, many of the lines here fall into a rough accentual meter: there are often three or four stressed syllables per line, but these don't fall in any particular pattern. For example, listen to lines 1-5:
I can remember you, child,
As I stood in a hot, white
Room at the window watching
The people and cars taking
Turn at the traffic lights.Accentual meter gives the poem some structure and rhythm without sounding rigid. This tension between form and freedom echoes the way the speaker is pulled between wanting to keep a close eye on her daughter and wanting to allow her more space to grow up.
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Rhyme Scheme
"Catrin" doesn't follow a rhyme scheme, which keeps its language feeling fresh, dynamic, and unpredictable throughout. While isn't a pattern of rhyme, however, there are a few rhymes sprinkled up top: "white" (line 2), "lights" (line 5), and "tight" (line 7). It's easy to miss these rhymes given the poem's heavy enjambment. Still, they add subtle pops of music to the poem's opening, adding to the drama to the scene of the speaker's labor.
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“Catrin” Speaker
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The speaker of "Catrin" is the poet herself: Gillian Clarke has stated that this is an autobiographical poem written about the poignancy of watching her own daughter grow up. That said, the poem's vivid descriptions of childbirth and mother-daughter conflict will likely ring true for many parents.
Clarke begins the poem by recalling the day her daughter was born, describing this event as their "first / Fierce confrontation." Their relationship has been marked from the start by intense love and a "fierce" desire for independence; both mother and daughter want "to be" themselves, to have their own lives.
Clarke longs for labor to be over and to deliver her daughter—and, in turn, to have her body to herself again—yet she also realizes that she will remain tethered to her child long after the umbilical cord (the "Red rope of love") has been cut. Indeed, years later, as a now nearly-teenaged Catrin stands before Clarke and asks to stay out later, Clarke feels the tug of "that old rope." That is, she feels the invisible tether of love that binds her to her daughter. She understands that, no matter how old her child gets, they will never truly be separate from each other.
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“Catrin” Setting
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Broadly, "Catrin" takes place as the speaker's daughter stands before her one night and asks to stay out a little later. Readers don't know that this is the case until the poem's final moments, however. This present-day scene prompts the speaker to flashback to the day she gave birth to her daughter at a hospital, and this is the setting that comprises the entire first stanza.
The speaker recalls the "hot, white / Room" where she gazed out of the window at "people and cars" passing through an intersection. The fact that she spends time standing and looking out the window hints that her labor wasn't short and quick; she likely spent a good deal of time in the dull hospital room, which had been "disinfected / Of paintings or toys."
The speaker's labor transforms this plain, sterilized environment. She describes filling in the lifeless walls with her "Words" (i.e., her shouts and moans) and coloring the "clean squares / With the wild, tender circles" of her labor. These metaphors—and the juxtaposition between the pristine hospital room and the messiness of the speaker's birth—suggest that parenthood makes the speaker's life more vibrant and colorful, even if it also makes it more complicated.
The second stanza returns to the present day, many years later. Now, the speaker stands facing her nearly-teenaged daughter, who wants to "skate / In the dark, for one more hour." While the darkness is literal, it also might symbolize the speaker's fears surrounding her daughter growing up and becoming more independent.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Catrin”
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Literary Context
Born in Cardiff in 1937, poet, playwright, and translator Gillian Clarke is one of the most recognizable names in contemporary Welsh poetry. Clarke spent eight years serving as the National Poet of Wales, from 2008-2016. "Catrin" was published in her second poetry collection, The Sundial, in 1978. The poem was inspired by a real encounter between Clarke and her eldest child, in which a nearly-teenaged Catrin asked for permission to stay out late skating with some friends. When asked what the poem is about, Clarke responded, "Why did my beautiful baby have to become a teenager. At least, I think that’s what it's about."
Clarke names English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, Irish poets William Butler Yeats and Seamus Heaney, and fellow Welsh poet Dylan Thomas as major influences on her work. She is also friends with fellow contemporary British poets Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay, and Imtiaz Dharker.
Broadly speaking, this poem fits into a tradition of poets writing about parenthood and mother-child relationships. Some significant examples of the genre include "Morning Song" and "Nick and the Candlestick" by Sylvia Plath, a "Confessional" poet who wrote often about her complicated feelings towards motherhood and whose autobiographical, intensely emotional verse inspired countless contemporary writers.
Historical Context
While "Catrin" doesn't make reference to historical or political events of the time, the poem might be considered within the context of second-wave feminism in the Western world. Unlike first-wave feminists, who focused mainly on women's suffrage in the early 20th century, second-wave feminists fought for increased reproductive freedom, workplace equality, and the general breakdown of the patriarchal institutions broadly governing society. The movement grew in part out of a backlash to the domesticity and conservatism of post-WWII society, on which women were expected to be homemakers, mothers, and little else.
With its interest in a woman's complex perspective on motherhood, "Catrin" reflects a world that was slowly shifting to include women's voices and experiences.
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More “Catrin” Resources
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External Resources
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An Interview With Clarke — Listen to a 2018 interview with Clarke in which she discusses Welsh poetry and why it's important to introduce children to creativity early.
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Poems On Pregnancy, Birth, and Being a Mother — Browse the Poetry Foundation's collection on poems about motherhood.
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Hear the Poet Read "Catrin" Aloud — Listen to Gillian Clarke read and introduce her own poem.
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An Introduction to the Poet's Work — Read a biography of Gillian Clark from Poetry International.
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British Poet Friends and Collaborators — Read about Gillian Clarke's road trip with fellow contemporary British poets Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay, and Imtiaz Dharker.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Gillian Clarke
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