The Complete Guide to Half-past Two
The whole story, told properly — one small boy, one forgotten detention, and twenty minutes outside time that lasted the rest of a life.
Introduction
- The poem in one breath — What happens, and why it has never worn out
- How to read a poem about a boy who can't read — The notation Fanthorpe invents — and teaches you in eleven stanzas
The world behind the poem
- The teacher who walked out — U A Fanthorpe in three scenes
- Before the clock: how children actually hold a day — Event-time, fairy-tale time, and the code nobody is born reading
Through the poem
- Stanzas 1–3: the sentence — A crime nobody remembers, a tariff nobody can read
- Stanzas 4–6: the times he knows — A homemade calendar, and the clock that won't click
- Stanzas 7–8: out of time — The escape at the poem's centre — flowers, a hangnail, air, ever
- Stanzas 9–11: the return — and the keeping — A scuttle, a slot, and the one thing never forgotten
The writer's craft
- The word-forge: coinages, capitals, brackets — How the poem's three notation systems make its meaning
- The shape of it: tercets, centre, frame — Eleven three-line stanzas built around a deliberate lapse
Interpretations
- What kind of poem is this, finally? — Comedy, elegy, vision — the readings that genuinely compete
The examination
- Taking it into the exam room — Section B: one comparative essay, two printed poems, AO2 + AO3 only