On The Train (poem)
Encyclopedia
On The Train is a poem by Gillian Clarke
. Its chief subject matter is the Paddington rail crash and its aftermath.
The poem imagines commuters on the train heading towards the "bone-ship" and refers to the anxiety of passengers and loved ones alike in the days following the disaster. Clarke uses the technology of 1999 to ground her poem in reality - the mobile phones of the victims lie in the wreckage of the train while their friends and family frantically try to ring them. She quotes the phrase:
"The Vodafone
you are calling
May have been switched off.
Please call later."
This everyday phrase takes on a new, more sinister meaning in context. Clarke concludes the poem by taking a lenient view, post-Paddington, of train passengers who make mobile phone calls - they no longer seem irritating, merely essential for reassuring people that they are still alive.
This poem was written soon after the mobile phone boom of the late 1990s and as such is one of the first comments on the phenomenon. Two years later, mobile phones would again be closely linked with tragedy on 11 September 2001.
The poem has been included in the AQA Anthology
for study at GCSE alongside several other of Gillian Clarke's poems. It is one of a number of Clarke poems - including A Difficult Birth and The Field-Mouse - which comment on contemporary events alongside the minutiae of Clarke's own life.
Gillian Clarke
Gillian Clarke is a Welsh poet, playwright, editor, broadcaster, lecturer and translator from Welsh.-Life:Clarke was born in Cardiff and brought up in Cardiff and Penarth, though for part of the Second World War she was in Pembrokeshire...
. Its chief subject matter is the Paddington rail crash and its aftermath.
The poem imagines commuters on the train heading towards the "bone-ship" and refers to the anxiety of passengers and loved ones alike in the days following the disaster. Clarke uses the technology of 1999 to ground her poem in reality - the mobile phones of the victims lie in the wreckage of the train while their friends and family frantically try to ring them. She quotes the phrase:
"The Vodafone
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
you are calling
May have been switched off.
Please call later."
This everyday phrase takes on a new, more sinister meaning in context. Clarke concludes the poem by taking a lenient view, post-Paddington, of train passengers who make mobile phone calls - they no longer seem irritating, merely essential for reassuring people that they are still alive.
This poem was written soon after the mobile phone boom of the late 1990s and as such is one of the first comments on the phenomenon. Two years later, mobile phones would again be closely linked with tragedy on 11 September 2001.
The poem has been included in the AQA Anthology
AQA Anthology
The AQA Anthology is a collection of poems and short texts which are studied in English schools for GCSE English and English Literature, produced by the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance...
for study at GCSE alongside several other of Gillian Clarke's poems. It is one of a number of Clarke poems - including A Difficult Birth and The Field-Mouse - which comment on contemporary events alongside the minutiae of Clarke's own life.