For My Grandmother Knitting
by Liz Lochhead
There is no need they say
but the needles still move
their rhythms in the working of your hands
as easily
as if your hands
were once again those sure and skilful hands
of the fisher-girl.
You are old now
and your grasp of things is not so good
but master of your moments then
deft and swift
you slit the still-ticking quick silver fish.
Hard work it was too
of necessity.
But now they say there is no need
as the needles move
in the working of your hands
once the hands of the bride
with the hand-span waist
once the hands of the miner’s wife
who scrubbed his back
in a tin bath by the coal fire
once the hands of the mother
of six who made do and mended
scraped and slaved slapped sometimes
when necessary.
But now they say there is no need
the kids they say grandma
have too much already
more than they can wear
too many scarves and cardigans –
gran you do too much
there’s no necessity…
At your window you wave
them goodbye Sunday.
With your painful hands
big on shrunken wrists.
Swollen-jointed. Red. Arthritic. Old.
But the needles still move
their rhythms in the working of your hands
easily
as if your hands remembered
of their own accord the patter
as if your hands had forgotten
how to stop.
About the Poet
Liz Lochhead, a Scottish poet, was trained in art. She taught art in Glasgow and Bristol. She also wrote several volumes of poetry but is best known for her plays. She focuses on various aspects of womanhood in her plays. We get a sense of parallels in much of her work, including her poetry – parallels between past and present and them and us. Much of her writing has as its theme the lives of women and Scottish life, in general.
Critical Analysis of the Poem
The poet has used a simple vocabulary and idioms to bring out the domestic scene of a grandmother knitting in her family. Using her hands as a metaphor, now, ‘swollen jointed’, ‘red’, ‘arthritic’ and ‘old’, she has portrayed the struggle of her life. From a young woman, who came from fisher stocks and had to work to make ends meet she had grown up into a frail woman, who seems to be lonely and indulges herself in knitting.
Her family dissuades her from knitting; however, there is nothing that can stop her trembling hands from moving; as though she reminisces the past, youthful days when she is busy; as though her hands don’t know how to stop.
The use of hands can also be interpreted as being symbolic of the actions of man and the knitted piece the result and the consequence of the action. Man struggles throughout his life, sees ups and downs, just as the grandmother did. She cleaned the fish that was fresh from the sea, rubbed her husband’s back, and raised six children with great discipline with those hands that are withered now. With the end of life, after great struggle, she is tired. Her ‘painful hands’ are a testimony to that.
Her hands waving good bye to her family that comes to meet her every Sunday makes one empathize with the condition of the old grandmother, who spent her entire life in the service of the family that left her deserted, abandoned her when her wrinkled, tired hands needed someone to hold them.
What is worth noticing, however, is that in spite of being tired, her hands haven’t stopped moving. In spite of not getting the love and care which she gave to her children, her wrinkled, emaciated hands still don’t stop knitting for them. A parallel can be drawn with the actions of human beings, yet again, who even after being tired continue working relentlessly to achieve better results, in the hope of a sweeter fruit.
Using past and reality to describe grandmother’s life, the poem manages to make the reader’s heart melt and sympathize with the grandmother. The hands have been beautifully used to bring about the grandmother’s situation and her struggle throughout her life.
Aadhyaa Khanna
1413413
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