Helen Dunmore was a British author whose work addresses themes of motherhood, war, friendship, childhood, and nature. Originally published in her 2007 collection Glad of These Times, the poem “To My Nine-Year-Old Self” is a dramatic monologue in which the speaker addresses her younger self. The childhood experiences of discovery, fear, imagination, and awe are at the core of the poem, but so are the adult burdens of fear, inhibition, and blame. The speaker ultimately departs from her younger self in peace, not wishing to disturb the child with the weight of adulthood.
With a tone of polite wryness, the speaker asks forgiveness of her younger self, then admonishes her for the expression on her face. She knows her nine-year-old self would rather be balancing on her hands or on the tightrope than talking to an adult. The speaker was very active as a child: the nine-year-old version of herself prefers to run and climb rather than walk. Her greatest joy is to leap from any height. Now, the speaker moves carefully so as to avoid injury. Various memories begin to arise as the speaker reminisces about her childhood, which was full of creativity and playfulness. The speaker is aware of the dangers that her nine-year-old self did not know of or did not care about, but she ultimately decides not to burden her younger self with adult fears.
A fascination with history threads through the multiple genres that Dunmore works in, and in this poem she considers her own personal history through the use of address. Whether celebrating the times she lives in or describing city lilacs, the poems in Glad of These Times maintain a social awareness. This appears in "To My Nine-Year-Old Self" when the speaker recalls hiding from men in cars who are looking for girl-children. These disturbing realities (including the city lilacs being compared to the lives of prostitutes) are neither overemphasized nor too subtle. Dunmore conveys them alongside sensuous descriptions of nature and witty details of everyday lives, thus conveying a far-reaching and rich awareness of the beauty and complexity of life.
