Smithereens - “Book Ends”
The speaker stresses, “You're life's all shattered into smithereens.” The smithereens embody a calamitous life that is disfigured by desolation. The wretchedness is attributed to the ‘she’s’ passing and the ill-fated relationship between the speaker and his ‘boy.’
Alcohol - “Book Ends”
The alcohol that the speaker and the addressee gobble is representational of premeditated drunkenness. The speaker divulges, “After tumblers of neat Johnny Walker/(I think that both of us we're on our third)” This admission conjectures that the speaker and the addressee utilize alcohol to inhibit the melancholy of bereavement.
The Bed - “Long Distance I”
The speaker avows, “Your bed's got two wrong sides.” The ‘wrong sides’ signify the speaker’s distressing uneasiness. Perhaps, the existence of ‘right sides’ on the bed would sanction the speaker to respite tranquilly on the bed.
Stammerer Versus Dumb - “Heredity”
Tony Harrison avows, “I say: I had two uncles, Joe and Harry-/one was a stammerer, the other dumb.” Tony Harrison did not take over the stammering (which embodies inarticulateness) and dumbness (which designates incapability) from his uncles. His contention conjectures that poetic aptitude is not heritable. Had Tony Harrison been ‘a stammerer or dumb,’ he would have not converted into an endowed poem composer.
