full=This is the full lesson text from www.skoool.ie for the Wendy Cope poem ‘Tich Miller’.
PARAPHRASE
This dramatic poem opens in a school playground where two teams are being selected for a game. Tich Miller, the subject of the poem, and Tubby, the speaker - are always selected last. Tich is badly handicapped, she has such poor eyesight that she has to wear very odd glasses and one of her feet is three times larger than the other. We assume the speaker is somewhat fat as she is called "Tubby". Neither girl is wanted on any of the teams and the embarrassment they feel is played out in the poem. Later, the speaker learns to use her academic abilities and quick wit to fight her corner. Tich goes to another school - she dies shortly afterwards.
THEME
'Tich Miller' is about the misery of being left out and alienated at school. Tich and Tubby don't fit in and are not wanted on the sports teams. They are not friends, but because they both experience the drama and humiliation of being picked last they become a pair of outcasts. Words like "always" and "usually" emphasise how the girls' misery was on-going.
Embarrassment is another theme of the poem. When we read how Tubby and Tich desperately avoid eye contact, we become aware of how embarrassed and humiliated they feel being the ones left out of the fun.
IMAGERY
The poem opens with the slightly comic image of a girl with exaggerated features. Her glasses have sickly pink frames, which the poet compares to the pink of elastoplast (plaster). Also, one of her feet is so large it is almost clownish. Almost clownish, but not quite.
In stanza four we learn that Tich is joined by Tubby, "the lesser dud". By stanza five, when Tich has 'lolloped, unselected/to the back of the other team', we feel pity. The image of two unfortunate human beings arouses our sympathy and we feel sorry for their suffering.
We are given a detailed account of an incident in the schoolyard in stanzas two to five. We learn what the consequences of being unpopular are for Tich and the speaker. They are both left standing by the "wire-mesh fence" while everyone else is picked for the teams. Tich and the speaker feel awkward as they stand there together:
We avoided one another's eyes,
Stooping, perhaps, to re-tie a shoelace,
If we look at the words the poet uses to describe the two girls we can see how uneasy they both are: they "avoid" each other's eyes and "re-tie" a shoelace that doesn't need to be tied again. By being left out, they, perhaps, form a tentative friendship as they wait together. (The fact that the poet has written this poem many years later about Tich shows that she cared for her in some way.)
The image of the fence here also helps to show us how left out, cut-off and alienated they feel from the rest of the students. The two girls can do nothing but accept the way the other girls treat them.
Another important image occurs in stanzas three and four when Tich and the speaker see a bird flying overhead and think of it as "fortunate". The bird is fortunate, of course, because it can fly away and be free. The two girls, on the other hand, feel trapped and have to pretend not to hear the hurtful things the other girls say about them. The poet is finally picked for one team. Tich is left last, so she "lolloped" to the back of the other team.
There are two strong images in the last verse when both girls "went to different schools". The first is of the triumphant Tubby, who was clever, learned to spell and get her own back. The final stark image gets a verse-line on its own; Tich, we are told, "died when she was twelve".
ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE
Tone
'Tich Miller' is a poem about being jeered at and left out in school. The tone of the poem also helps to show us what it is like to be in this situation. Tich and the poet are not angry; they are humiliated and hopeless because they don't know how to fight back:
When they picked teams for outdoor games
she and I were always the last two
left standing by the wire-mesh fence.
But they do notice each other and begin to acknowledge one another in an awkward and tentative way:
We avoided one another's eyes,
stooping, perhaps, to re-tie a shoelace,
or affecting interest in the flight
of some fortunate bird…
The girls' only hope is to fly away, like the bird, from the schoolyard and the teasing of the other students.
The tone of the poem changes in the sixth stanza when the helplessness gives way to triumph. The poet has gone to another school and the resentment she felt about being excluded is shown when she finds a way to fight back:
In time I learned to get my own back,
sneering at hockey-players who couldn't spell.
But Tich never found a way to fight back and the poem ends with a matter-of-fact statement that is sudden, shocking and sad:
Tich died when she was twelve.
Rhyme
Just as poets consciously decide to employ rhyme to create a sense of harmony, the absence of rhyme in a poem can often be a deliberate effect used to emphasise the lack of harmony of an experience. The subject matter of this poem is the exclusion of the speaker and Tich by the other girls in the schoolyard. So the poem sets out to mirror this situation by presenting us with a simple, direct account of the incident without using many poetic devices.
It is interesting to note also that the only place in the poem where we find rhyme (in this case a half rhyme spell/ twelve) is the closing two lines:
In time I learned to get my own back,
sneering at hockey-players who couldn't spell.
Tich died when she was twelve.
The stanza break between the two rhyming lines creates a significant pause (a caesura) so that the final line has an added sense of meaning and importance. The rhyme here enforces the stark revelation that Tich died soon after the events described in the poem. It also helps to end the poem with a degree of finality, which echoes the tragic reality of Tich's death.
POINTS TO PONDER:
Being at school can be a great experience but it can also be very difficult if you are thought of as strange or different. Do you think 'Tich Miller' gives a true account of how some students are treated at school? What do you think can be done by students to deal with this kind of behaviour?
'Tich Miller' shows how small things that are said or done can make life miserable for some students. What actions in the poem do you think are hurtful? Do you think the other students in the schoolyard realised how hurtful their behavior was?
Do you think the poet manages to give a moving portrait of Tich? How did you feel when you discovered that Tich had died so young?
BACKGROUND:
Wendy Cope was born in the south of England in 1945. After teaching for several years in junior schools in London, she became a freelance writer and columnist. Well known for her humorous approach to poetry she has said “I believe a humorous poem can also be ‘serious’; deeply felt and saying something that matters.” In 1986 she published Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis which includes a number of literary jokes and parodies of well-known twentieth century writers.