English Language & Literature

2. December 2012

Written Commentary in the Form of an Essay on

Jon Stallworthys Poem Two Hands
The importance of identity through service within community that begins
within the microcosm of a father-son relationship (line 1) and is stretched
like an accordion to include doctor-patient relationships (lines 3 and 14)
is cogently intimated in Jon Stallworthys poignent poem Two Hands.
This pithy, initially unassuming poem was published in 1976 in the
volume Root and Branch, which already foreshadows the overarching
theme of root (father, profession) and branch (son, contribution/result)
being biologically connected and yet functionally different. The poem
relies more on alliteration (his study sits stiffly, lines 1 and 2, has
sobbed itself to sleep, line 5, keep me cursing, lines 8 and 9) and
assonance (hand, you may have your chance, line 15) than uneven rhyme
(hand-dance, some-elsewhere none, slow-phone) to move the reader
along, but the rhythm is quick and almost hypnotic, the short lines and
use of enjambement as well as repetition are quite compelling and the
images stark.
The first-person narrator, who is palpably confused, if not agonized,
indeed cursing himself and his situation, compares his hands to his
fathers in terms of physical appearance (lines 11 and 12). He also
compares them to performative ability (the one, which dances with a
pencil on paper, line 10) , the other which saves lives (in an intricate
dance of the scalpel, lines 4 and 5). The fathers hands seem to be those
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of a busy, self-disciplined and reliable surgeon, on call even at night, and

reading professional literature, even after a long day of demanding work.
Throughout the poets depiction of these two protagonists, he emphasizes
how two people who seem so similar, and are supposed to be intimate or
close by default (in the same family, in the same house), can be almost
alien to each other in their personalities (rapid-slow, sure-indecisive),
emotions and experiential worlds (line 12).
Stallworty employs alluring examples of personification, symbolism and
metaphor to signify the sons sense of insecurity and inferiority in
contrast to his fathers distinguished career, which consequently
illustrates how two people who are physically similar can have different
talents and thus tasks.
The author, Jon Stallworthy, employs personification and imagery using
objects (ordinary nouns) and substantiated verbs (e.g. dance, spasm,
cursing, stitch) to create and elicit an at once familiar and unsettling
setting and a nuanced atmosphere. The mood is characterized by tension
resulting among other things from an awkward comparison that hints at
oedipal competition and is connected to performance anxiety (line 18).
This agonizing questioning of identity and purpose is associated with the
poetic allegory of what hands can handle. All of these annoying questions
(who would have thought) are posed as a rhetorical question relative in
the middle of the poem (line 10). They address a biological but perhaps
not necessarily professional role model. The father is some sort of doctor
whose scalpel is intricate and measurably valuable. The father serves
and saves lives, whereas the sons style (line 9) might count on paper
but nowhere else (line 10). And despite this self-doubt, the poet might in
his slow labor (line 18) cut through a plethora of poetic choices (line 8)

and decide on a meta-narrative that stitches together a life for fingers

that have stitched new life for many.
Two Hands elegantly and cogently introduces, explores and enlarges
the crucial question of identity within the context of professional worth
within the scope of only 20 lines, using only a few nouns. It achieves this
feat within the small temporal space of one day and night as well physical
space of a single home, using only two characters, symbolized by two
hands. The simple professional tools (pencil and scalpel) are personified
to elicit a feeling in the reader. This mood is assumed to be experienced
by one of the two protagonists: son or father. These seemingly prosaic
objects are described in various degrees of symbolic explicitness and
implicitness using adjectives and gerunds (nodding pen, sobbing
telephone, stitch a life, dance with a pencil) to set the stage for the main
theme.
The authors purpose is to articulate the conundrum of continuity with its
underlying tensions. These include a stretching to almost tearing, which
the protagonist experiences as a kind of curse. This agony, fed by
uncertainty (indecision), is emphasized by the repetition of the expression
curse (lines 6 and 9). The mounting tension traverses in a flitting fashion,
not unlike the time span between morning and late night as well as the 4
tenses that the author moves among (past which alludes to
remembering and present perfect, connecting both tenses, the present,
which begins the poem and future, which ends it). This is reminiscent of
a dance (lines 5 and 14), which, like the curse, is referred to twice, and
has a comforting symbolic quality. It is the practiced, harmonious,
intentional movement of the scalpel (incision) and pencil (decision, since
nothing emerging from it is permanent like a pen -- and can be erased
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and reformed). It is also a pas du deux (French, literally "step of two" )

from similarity to difference, proximity to distance, scientific necessity to
aesthetic creativity.
At the heart of the poem (line 10) is the personal puzzle plaguing the
poet. The motif is the big question of identity and its subtheme value. The
author wants to explore, indeed test the chance (a fated cursed,
contracted opportunity-- a decision, a random or a self-achieved result?)
to stitch a life a metaphor for creating narrative coherence from the
parts (fingers) of the larger whole (hand) within the context of the
house which contains the two characters with their two hands and what
these handle (scalpels or pencils) and this scenario is implicitly
embedded in a larger community which is connected via telephones and
lives, many lives (line 18) in need of service and saving (line 14).
The poet ponders how to weigh the value of physical and emotional
service and survival. That is the guiding theme that carries through all 20
lines: the father has served and saved 13 lives between breakfast and
supper (more than a dozen, more than one per hour, a quantifiable fact, a
documentable achievement) while the son, at the other end of the house
curses himself and questions the place and effectiveness of his pencils
dance across paper (line 10). Is paper a topos for life? Is he the author
of his life?
The pencil and scalpel suggest the tasks for which they are designed and
which require manual manipulation: a poets pencil writes and stylishly
stitches together, connects words which might convey or even magically
create and contain meaning. The author, like his father, wants to make
sense of life and make a meaningful contribution, to serve, and perhaps
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save lives, if only his own, and in doing so, give back to his maker, the
doctor, on call, no matter how tired (a pencil nodding stiffly which still
has articles to read in a medical journal -- aptly called The Lancet,
because after all, a scalpel lances wounds thus draining the toxic pus).