Overview

The poem reflects on a past relationship and the speaker’s journey towards self-acceptance. It’s a tribute to a friend and former dancer, Nora, imagining her life now compared to her vibrant past. The speaker gently contrasts her current suburban life with her former artistic brilliance.

Main themes

The poem explores love and changing relationships, identity and self-acceptance, disappointment and compromise, and the contrast between artistic expression and domestic life.

Tone and voice

The tone is affectionate, playful, and resigned. The speaker uses first person voice to address Nora directly, showing admiration and gentle regret while accepting the choices both have made.

Context

Paul Maddern grew up in Bermuda, where conservative values made it difficult to express his identity as a gay man. He trained as a dancer and later became a poet. The poem honours Nora, a fellow dancer, and reflects on the emotional cost of conformity and the freedom found in self-acceptance.

Form and structure

The poem has 14 lines, echoing a sonnet, but breaks traditional form with three uneven stanzas (5–5–4 lines). It uses slant rhyme and irregular metre to mirror emotional complexity. A volta begins with “But”, marking a shift from nostalgia to acceptance.

Poetic devices to spot

• Allusion – references to “Swan Lake” and “Terpsichore” evoke Nora’s artistic past.
• Imagery – suburban life contrasts with the glamour of performance.
• Apostrophe – direct address to Nora creates intimacy.
• Assonance and consonance – subtle sound patterns reinforce tone.
• Rhetorical questions – highlight emotional tension and reflection.
• Hyperbole – used to express admiration and imagined disruption.
• Tone – warm, reflective, and accepting with hints of wistfulness.

by Paul Maddern

The text of this poem is available in the CCEA Poetry Anthology, which can be downloaded from the CCEA website.

The BBC is not responsible for the contents of any other sites listed.

The speaker’s reflection on the distance he feels from a past love allows him to more fully accept his own identity. First published in 2010.

• Title: In English, ‘to efface’ is to erase something or to keep yourself out of sight and inconspicuous; in French, “effacé” can mean shaded; in this poem it is primarily a descriptive classical ballet term for a stance in which the dancer stands at an angle to the audience, legs apart or uncrossed but face and body turning away from view.

• Themes: Love, changing relationships, self-knowledge, disappointment, performance.

• Tone: Playful, resigned, wry, accepting, affectionate, self-deprecating.

• Speaker: First person perspective; the poet himself speaking on the very personal issue of his relationship with a person from his past.

• Paul Maddern was born in Bermuda to Irish-Cornish parents. He found the society in Bermuda repressive in terms of its social values (rescinding gay marriage, for example) and said it was a “difficult” place in which to grow up. He moved to Canada to study film in 1983, then lived and worked in both America and England before settling in Northern Ireland.
• Maddern trained as a dancer and joined the Colorado Ballet as an apprentice. It was there that he met Nora, to whom the poem is dedicated and addressed. He has acknowledged the influence of Nora in lectures regarding the poem and says that she is “someone I love, but not in that way. It’s a different kind of love.” The French ballet terms throughout the poem are references both of them would have understood well from their dance training.
• Maddern’s early absorption of the conservative values of Bermudian society and his struggles to fit in while growing up meant he had difficulty accepting his own identity as a gay man until well into adulthood. ‘Effacé’ is in part a tribute to having renounced the idea he should or could have “lived a lie”; he has instead found ways to accept himself in the years since he was involved with Nora.

Only a little context is needed for each poem; where used, it should be applied to the point you're making.

• Effacé contains 14 lines; it is the same length as a sonnet, but lacks a sonnet’s regular rhyme scheme and poetic metre. The sonnet form was often used for love poetry – perhaps Maddern is partly acknowledging this while also showing that his is a highly irregular love poem, reinventing the rules in a way that reflects the unusual nature of the love. Also, the way his feelings about the old relationship have helped him reassess his own identity. The new shape of the old form reflects his new attitude to his old self.
• The poem is divided into three stanzas: the first five lines address the disappointment felt by the speaker upon receiving a “sterile” and distant-sounding letter from someone with whom he used to be much closer. The second stanza is also five lines and shows him imagining her past beauty and brilliance as a dancer in the present mundane setting of her life; the third stanza opens with the volta, indicated by the word “But”, and devotes its four lines to a sense of acceptance about the current situation. This 5-5-4 structure is unlike either of the two classic sonnet forms (the Italian/Petrarchan sonnet and the Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet), but creates a new layout for the format.
• The classic sonnet forms also have set patterns of rhyme within them. Effacé does not conform to either of these patterns but instead has a partial rhyme scheme which is established in the first stanza (AABBA), largely unravels in the second (reflecting how he imagines Nora’s presence could unravel a mundane dinner party with her beauty and the sensuality of her dancing). It is partially re-established in the last stanza with alternate rhyming lines that give some sense of closure. The second stanza in particular contains some slant rhymes (half-rhymes, such as “arches” with “unconscious”) but largely abandons rhyming and allows the wild scene of his imagination to override the rhyming order, exaggerating the power of Nora in his memory.

did sling-backs reveal triumphant arches,
were accountants left unconscious

• The poem does not have a consistent metre, again showing its refusal to conform to the standard rules of a sonnet and its insistence on adjusting or even disrupting the idea of the classic love poem. However, it does contain a few lines (mostly around the volta in the third stanza) written in iambic pentameter, which was the traditional poetic metre used in most sonnets. Perhaps Maddern’s attempt to show his love for Nora is real, though not the kind of love he once pretended it could be. One iamb is a two-beat combination: an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed (emphasised) syllable, making a ‘da-DUM’ pattern, like a heartbeat. Pentameter means five of these two-beat units per line, making 10 syllables altogether:

| But should | I be | con-tent | if my | O- dette |
| da-DUM | da-DUM | da-DUM | da-DUM | da-DUM |

• Apostrophe: The poem is dedicated to “Nora” and uses apostrophe to address her directly from the first line: “Yours was the face I almost lived a lie for”. The direct address to her makes the disappointment of the speaker clearer, as he feels her impersonal letter now shows how great the distance between them has become over the years. The ending, where he asks himself whether he should be “content” with accepting things as they are, includes an imperative to her: “Nibble canapés my swan, forget / This mincing prince”.
  
  The instruction could sound both dismissive and patronising toward her, were it not immediately followed by his own self-deprecating description of the speaker as a “mincing prince”. This makes the tone sound much more affectionate, illustrating him both accepting himself and extending Nora the same acceptance in her life as a wife and mother rather than a ballet star.

• Allusion: Effacé uses several allusions that are integral to understanding the poem fully. Both the poet/speaker and the person addressed were professional ballet dancers in the past; Maddern uses references from the classic ballet, Swan Lake, to illustrate aspects of their relationship. In Swan Lake, Odette is a princess who has been cursed to live as a swan by day and only become her true human self at night. The male lead, Prince Siegfried, falls in love with her and learns of her curse, but is deceived into betraying her, dooming their relationship. Maddern refers to Nora as both “my Odette” and “my swan” and himself as a “prince”, casting them in the lead roles of the famous ballet and drawing a comparison between the two relationships that failed.
  
  “Terpsichore” is the Greek muse of dance; the speaker alludes to her when he imagines Nora’s dancing overtaking the bland reunion she attends with her husband so that the husband “damns” the goddess for the power and brilliance of Nora’s ballet skills. The fact he addresses her as both “Odette”, the heroine’s human name, and “swan”, Odette’s cursed form, reveals that he feels Nora may be hiding her true nature – that of a beautiful and brilliant ballerina. She will only “nibble canapés” at a party in a supporting role to her husband. Ultimately, however, he accepts that she is happy as she is, and concludes that he too should be “content”.

• Imagery of suburban life: Maddern conjures a sense of the ordinary suburban life Nora seems to have chosen with her husband, with snippets of mundane imagery. Beginning with a reference to “the 2.4”, a longstanding and recognisable (and sometimes mocked, given its impossible decimal quantity) statistic about the ‘average’ number of children in a British household, used here as a metaphor for having and raising children. He imagines Nora looking chic in a dress and “sling-backs” at her husband’s “reunion”, daintily eating “canapés” (fancy cocktail snacks), and notes she could “distract suburban courts”. This suggests she is now playing the background role of a pretty amusement for “accountants” (perceived as a respectable but dull profession) and other friends of her husband, rather than the dramatic leading role the speaker envisions her in.
  
  Maddern’s use of humorous exaggeration does sometimes sound as though he is slightly mocking the blandness of Nora’s pleasant middle-class life (such as when he imagines the shocked reactions of the party if the Nora he knew in the past were to break out her dance moves), but he stops short of being mean about her; rather he is realising that the life she chose would not be suitable for him, and coming closer to accepting himself as a result.

• Imagery of performance: Contrasting with the bland pleasantries of the suburban life Nora now occupies, Maddern uses imagery evoking her earlier strength, beauty, and power as a dancer. “Triumphant arches” refers to the arch of the foot, which ballet dancers require to be strong and pronounced to execute their moves; the adjective “triumphant” suggests the magnificence of her physical form is almost like a celebration. The allusions to “développés and port de bras” use the romantic French terms for ballet moves, literally ‘unfolding’ and ‘carriage of the arms’, describing what he remembers of Nora’s graceful movements. He wonders if those movements, that outwardly represent who she used to be, were able to come across through the nice dress she chose for the party, an outward representation of who she is now. He labels these moves “seductive”, again attributing to Nora a spirit and sensuality he knew in her before and fails to see in the “sterile A4 annual report”.
  
  Calling her “Odette” and “swan” metaphorically casts her in the leading role of Swan Lake, making her the star of the show: dramatic, skilled, graceful, powerful and unique – all qualities he thinks she must rarely get to show in her current life of middle-class normalcy. The contrast created between the imagery of suburbia and the imagery of performance highlights the differences between Nora’s past and present. It also highlights the differences between how the speaker’s life would have been had he decided to “live a lie” and how his life can be now that he is more accepting of himself.

• Assonance and consonance: Throughout the poem, small instances of assonance and consonance create internal consistency within the poem; examples include the repeated short ‘i’ sounds in “nibble”, “mincing” and “prince” which sound shallow and a little trivial in a way that contributes to a sense of humorous dismissiveness; or the repeated ‘t’ sounds in lines three and four (“not… report / about the daughter’s aptitude for sport”), which help to convey the prim and distant formality that the speaker feels Nora’s impersonal letter evokes.
  
  These repeated ‘t’ sounds, representing propriety and the relative ease of being superficial in a social context, return in the final stanza’s first two lines (“content if my Odette / is happy to distract suburban courts?”). Nora is still prim and distant here, but he has now accepted the distance between them as a side effect of the fact they were not meant to be together.

Nibble canapés my swan, forget
this mincing prince who hoped we might be more.

This is not a list of every method or notable use of language and structure in Effacé.

Look at the poem again. Can you find any of the following?

If you have found these methods, consider what you know about the poem and the poet already.

What effects do these methods create? Why has he used them?

• The Road Not Taken – the idea of the poet “living a lie” with Nora represents a ‘road not taken’ in his life; however, unlike the speaker in Frosts’s poem, Maddern is reconciled to the idea that the life he rejected would not have been a good one for him.

• Piano – a poem which uses music as a vehicle to the past similarly to how Effacé uses dance; for contrast, Piano’s speaker is evoking a direct detailed memory rather than a scene of imagination.

• I Remember, I Remember – another poem in which the speaker uses imagined scenes to explore aspects of his own identity – in this case his childhood, and hometown.

Use these questions to hone your knowledge of Effacé, and to practise using your notes and analysis in organised paragraphs that focus on how particular themes or ideas are shown in the poem. There is an example answer in the following section to demonstrate how you can do this.

• What poetic methods does Maddern use to show his feelings about Nora in Effacé?
• How does Maddern show a sense of love and admiration in Effacé?
• What does Effacé show us about Maddern’s attitude to the idea of “living a lie”?
• How does Maddern create a gently mocking tone in Effacé?

Below is a demonstration of how to use the material in this section to answer an example essay question. The answer below is not a full essay, but only an extract of a longer answer, showing some of the points that could be made.

Q: What poetic methods does Maddern use to show his feelings about Nora in Effacé?

A: The dedication of the poem Effacé is “To Nora”, a real person Paul Maddern knew in his days as a dancer with the Colorado Ballet; Maddern further uses apostrophe to directly address her in the poem, showing her to be a central character to his first person speaker. The fact the poem is also about his own identity and acceptance of who he is suggests Nora is or was integral to these significant aspects of himself. The poem’s form and structure has some aspects of a sonnet – 14 lines, a volta, some consistency of rhythm and rhyme – which is the traditional form for love poetry, and Maddern (a gay man) has described Nora as “someone I love, but not in that way”. However, Effacé refuses to conform to a set sonnet structure overall – it has three stanzas with unusual 5-5-4 line lengths and an irregular rhyme scheme. This scheme largely unravels in the second stanza and utilises some slant rhyme before resolving in alternating rhyming lines. It also has irregular metre, with only a few lines around the volta conforming to standard iambic pentameter – all of this is unlike either of the classic sonnet forms (Petrarchan and Shakespearean). Maddern is showing that his is a highly irregular love poem, reinventing the rules in a way that reflects the unusual nature of the love for Nora. Also, the way his feelings about the old relationship have helped him reassess his own identity. The new shape of the old form reflects his new attitude to his old self. Maddern uses some sonnet aspects to show his love for Nora is real, even though it is not the kind of love he once pretended it could be.

At the start of the poem, the speaker’s tone is disappointed, even hurt. He considers the contrast in the idea that this person with whom he might have considered spending his life is now sending him the same boring list of updates. She might send it to anyone else she knows. The impersonal nature of the “sterile A4 annual report” is heightened by Maddern’s use of consonance; the repeated ‘t’ sounds in lines three and four help to convey the prim and distant formality that the speaker feels Nora’s detached letter evokes. The fact he feels reproachful about this may suggest that Nora’s distance from him now feels like a betrayal of sorts. This shows that he cares for her but is also far from her, and that they used to be much closer than they are now. Maddern’s difficulty with this is shown in several ways as he works through the feelings. Listing some important aspects of Nora’s life – her child, her husband and her social life – as a fairly trite triple (“the daughter’s aptitude for sport, / Ted’s reunion and the dress you wore”) shows he is initially dismissive, almost even mean, about her life choices. He uses bland imagery of suburbia (“accountants”, “canapés”) to give a sense of her life now being superficial and boring. He imagines a ridiculous scene in which the boring people she now knows end up fainting with shock when they see a glimpse of her old self dancing. However, Maddern’s mockery is gentle and is aimed more at himself than at her. He is not ridiculing her life, but really imagining how unsuitable her life would have been for him had he stayed with her and ended up in similar scenarios. He uses a gentle imperative – “Nibble canapés my swan, forget/ this mincing prince” – to free her from his unfair judgement and to acknowledge that the problem was with him not accepting himself, not with her. This shows his ongoing regard for Nora.

This essay could go on to make the following points, backed up by evidence from the poem and detailed analysis of that evidence:

• Maddern uses allusions to the ballet Swan Lake to elevate Nora and also to possibly suggest she is hiding her real brilliance in her current life, showing respect for her.
• Maddern uses imagery of performance to evoke Nora’s beauty, spirit, and skill as a dancer, showing he finds her admirable and impressive.
• Maddern uses rhetorical questions and hyperbole to create an exaggerated comic scene of Nora’s dancing creating havoc at a party; the gently teasing tone suggests they are close and can joke with each other; he views her as a real friend and isn’t worried she’d be offended.