The thread is a very appropriate title for this poem. The poem talks about Jamie’s birth and the aftermath which saw him fighting for his life. In this sense the thread is a metaphor for the thing that kept him alive. In the second half of the poem there is an image of Paterson, Jamie and Russell all running down a hill together in a line. Here the thread is the family as they stretch out across the grass.
The split in the poem creates a clear division between the past and the present. The past was a tense time as they thought that Jamie might not make it, however now Jamie is very much alive and filled with energy.
The flying metaphor in this poem helps us understand both Jamie’s birth and the life he is living aged 2. In line 2-3 it tells us that Jamie “made his landing in the world so hard he ploughed straight back into the earth”. The use of “landing” makes it seem like Jamie is some otherworldly being who has arrived on our plane. This suggests he is a gift to his parents. It also suggests the speed and panic surrounding his difficult birth, especially with the follow up of “so hard he ploughed straight back into earth” which suggests he almost died.
The metaphor of flying is again used to describe Jamie, aged 2. This time it suggests family and a vibrant energy about Jamie. We are told that Paterson and his two boys make a “great twin-engined swaying wingspan” as they run down the hill. Here the word choice creates a sense of a family unit and vitality. The word ‘great’ suggests that this family is powerful and mighty in some way. “twin-engined” shows us that it is the boys who give their father his energy and drive and swaying wingspan” again suggests the size of this family, they feel invincible in this moment as they run down the hill. Jamie in particular stands out as we are told his lungs “somehow out-rev every engine in the universe”. There is a suggestion here that Jamie is far more powerful and alive than anything that has been made by man.
The language in lines 2 and 3 creates a sense of wonder at Jamie’s survival. His landing is so hard that he went “straight back into the earth”. Although this is a metaphor for the landing plane it has other connotations of a body being laid to rest hinting that Jamie came very close to death. We are told the doctors “caught” him, which suggests he was falling in some way. We already know he was almost dead from the previous line. The seriousness of the issue is put across in the “one breath”. It suggests that Jamie only had one shot at living and that this was it.
In the final three lines Paterson uses structure to create a sense of the thread holding the family together. First of all line 12 talks about the “long week” of Jamie’s hospitalisation at birth. This creates a sense of worry. Paterson then quickly moves on the thread giving us a time shift with the word “now” that comes after the caesura, this lets us know that he is going to be focusing on the present. He then places the words “the thread” at the end of line 12, which emphasises its importance as a key idea in the poem. He then goes on to say that the thread is “holding all of us” which lets us know he is talking about the whole family unit. This time he expands the family unit further to include his wife. There is a colon which goes on to introduce the mother “look at our tiny house,/ son, the white dot of your mother waving” which gives us the full image of the family – father and sons at the top of the hill with their mother at the other end of the thread at the bottom of the hill.
Line 7 is very effective at creating an image of the family strength by focusing on the male members of the family. Paterson uses a metaphor to compare himself and his two boys to a plane with a “great twin-engined swaying wingspan”. Paterson clearly feels that his energy is derived from his boys and that they drive him in some way. They are clearly one unit, as together they form the plane and there is a sense of immensity here with the word choice “great” and the implication of size through “wingspan”.
