Home: "Change"

Home: “Change”

Overview

• “Home: Change” is a reflective poem composed by Iain Crichton Smith.
• The speaker in the poem is a man who has returned to his childhood home to find it quite changed, conveying a sense of loss and nostalgia.

Themes

• Change and Loss: The transformation of his childhood neighbourhood represents change and loss, a common theme in Smith’s works.
• Nostalgia and Memory: The speaker recalls the sounds, smells, and images of his past, showing nostalgia and the unreliable nature of memory.

Imagery

• The imagery of the “Now silent green” where laughter once echoed articulates the sense of sadness and loss.
• The “houses built in a stranger’s style” reinforces the foreignness of the changed landscape to the speaker.
• The image of the lost “sound of the children singing” emphasises the vanished vibrancy and life of the hometown.

Language

• Use of simple, straightforward language compounds the feeling of nostalgia and melancholy.

Rhyme and Meter

• Lacks a regular meter and rhyme scheme, reflecting the unpredictable nature of change.

Tone

• A sense of mourning and loss pervades the poem, reflective of the speaker’s feelings about the changes in his hometown.

Conclusion

• The poem “Home: Change” is a potent exploration of nostalgia, change, and loss narrated with touching simplicity and vivid imagery. It explores the inescapability of time through its haunting lament of a lost youth and a changed home.