Language and style

Addressing the language and style of “Geriatric Ward” by Phoebe Hesketh can help you better understand the poem, as well as the intentions of the author with his text.

Playing with the language

Phoebe Hesketh plays with language a great deal in her poems. Wordplay is created mostly with metaphors. For instance, the metaphor of the “machine gun” (l. 6) indicates that the doctor feels the responsibility of maintaining justice by not making the patients suffer. For him, death by a machine gun would be more humane than the patients being held on life support.

Then, the metaphor of the “cabbages” (l. 17) reinforces the idea that patients are like vegetables, unable to take care of themselves. However, probably the most interesting metaphor is that of time being forcefully fed to patients (l. 1). The expression “feeding time” (l. 1) to those who cannot utter a response resembles an abuse and a useless technique of prolonging a life that is already gone.

The title of the poem is also a sign that the author is playing with language. Geriatrics is the branch of medicine that specialises in taking care and treating the elderly. Few readers expect to read a poem in which the elderly are depicted as being in a vegetable-lik...