The poem describes the poet remembering a photograph of her mother from her childhood at the beach with her cousins. The photograph brings back memories of her mother's happy face before her death. Now, years later, the poet feels the "laboured ease of loss" as she has been without her mother for as long as the woman in the photograph lived. The finality of death leaves one speechless, as expressed by the silence at the end.

1. A Photograph
- Shirley Toulson
A Presentation By:
Anirudh & Sristi- XI

2. 1. Shirley Toulson was born on
20th May,1924 in England.
2. A Writer, Editor came under
influence of Celtic
Christianity.
3. Toulson In Poem
“Photograph” Describes the
emotions felt as she
remembered the story behind
the image and what it means
to the poet.

3. The cardboard shows me how it was
When the two girl cousins went paddling,
Each one holding one of my mother's hands,
And she the big girl- some twelve years or so .

4. All three stood still to smile through their hair
At the uncle with the camera. A sweet face,
My mother's, that was before I was born.
And the sea, which appears to have changed less,
Washed their terribly transient feet.

5. Some twenty - thirty - years later
She'd laugh at the snapshot. "See Betty
And Dolly," she'd say, "and look how they
Dressed us for the beach." The sea holiday
Was her past, mine is her laughter. Both wry
With-the laboured ease of loss.

6. Now she's been dead nearly as many years
As that girl lived. And of this circumstance
There is nothing to say at all.
Its silence silences.

7. 1. Death can numb you and leave you at a loss of words.
The finality of death and the loss cannot be
expressed in words. Death can silence you and leave
you speechless" ....... " it's silence silences".......
2. the mother missed her past, and found it amusing
, and the daughter missed her past with her mother
(i.e. the time she spent with her mother when she
was alive).
3. The words "transient feet" has a special significance-
-- they show how transient, temporary human life is
as compared to nature.

8. 4. The poet realizes that she has lost her mother, and so
that "laboured ease of loss" sets in.
“laboured ease of loss" because :
--- it is difficult for her to forget her mother and put
behind her past and move on.
--- it has ease because the pain of the loss is reduced
with time. TIME acts as a healer and the daughter moves
on.
So, even though she hasn't really forgotten her
mother, but then she is not even in as great a pain now (
12 years after her mother’s death) as she was when her
mother died.

9.  The poet recalls the memory of her
late mother, gazing at the
frame, where the photograph of
her mom along with cousins Betty
and Dolly in their pre-teens. The
photo refers to one of their visits
to the sea-beach. At that time, the
mother's face had the sweetness
of a young girl. Transient feet
refers to the transience of life.

10. She recalls how mom had looked at the
photo 20-30 yrs later and laughed at the
attires that she and her cousins were
wearing. The sea holiday was a thing of past
for her. Her smiling face had become a
thing of the past for the poet just as the
mother’s childhood had been for her. Both
of them( mom and poet) now move on
despite the losses.
Now, she has been dead for about 12 years.
The void in the life of the poet is the
‘silence’ and gloom that she feels.

11. The poem "A Photograph" contains the oxymoron
"laboured ease", which in the context of loss may
mean avoiding the public display of grief