The Speaker

Because the poem takes place within a single moment, little is revealed about the speaker; they could be any age, gender, or ethnicity, but there is a retrospective quality to the poem that makes the speaker feel like an older person looking back on a memory and a tradition. The opening of the poem explores their sensory relationship with the setting and with the sloe gin they’ve uncovered; as the poem progresses, the speaker begins to reflect on their relationship with the gin-maker.

The Gin-Maker

Although there is only one character present in the poem’s isolated moment in time, there is a brief allusion in the first stanza: “She fed gin to sloes” (Line 3). It’s clear that the gin has been made by a woman in the speaker’s life. While it’s not specified in the poem, this may be a reference to...