In Mrs Tilscher's Class Literary Elements

The poem is in the second person, from the perspective of a largely unidentified speaker reminiscing about their long-ago schooling.

The poem is written in free verse, with two octaves and two septets.

The simile about how Mrs. Tilscher’s “classroom glowed like a sweet shop” communicates the joy and novelty of school. The metaphor "a skittle of milk" evokes schoolyard games while also describing a bottle's shape. The metaphor that tadpoles changed from "commas into exclamation marks" calls to mind the process of learning to write, strengthening the poem's description of educational activities.

The poem's early lines feature alliterative T's in words like "tracing" and "Tana," creating a percussive, propulsive beat. Alliterative G's in the phrase "good gold star" emphasize the link between students' behavior and their teacher's reinforcements. Assonant short "E" sounds in the phrase "heavy, sexy sky" create a sense of length and heaviness.

The poem's closing lines are ironic, describing young children eager to grow up even as the older speaker waxes nostalgic about the joys of childhood. The irony is increased by the paradoxical fact that, for the children, childhood is joyful precisely because it is unmarked by nostalgia for the past or worry about the future.

Lyric poem/coming-of-age poem

A school somewhere in the U.K. during the middle decades of the twentieth century

Nostalgic, affectionate, and occasionally dark and rueful

Protagonist: Mrs. Tilscher and her students. Antagonists: a range of threats to childhood innocence.

The poem features smaller conflicts, notably between the speaker and the "rough boy," but its overarching conflict is between childhood innocence and adult experience.

The "rough boy" and his revelations about sexuality are the poem's climax, igniting an impactful moment of conflict.

The tadpoles' transformation into frogs foreshadows the speaker's coming maturation.

“You asked her / how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled, / then turned away” is an understated means of conveying that the “you” has matured to the point where the classroom's insulation cannot sufficiently ward off adult concerns.

“Brady and Hindley” is an allusion to a notorious couple known for their murder of several children in the 1960s.

In the line "You could travel up the Blue Nile," metonymy is used to substitute a river on a map for a real river.

“The laugh of a bell swung by a running child” attributes human traits to the sound an inanimate object makes.

“A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot, / fractious under the heavy, sexy sky” is an overstatement to show the emotional anxiety and weight of adolescence and sexual awakening.

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