Grandpa's Soup by Jackie Kay

In Grandpa's Soup by Jackie Kay, a particular food - Scotch broth - demonstrates the bond the speaker shares with their Grandpa. The poem:

• uses a childlike voice and instances of Scots - “wee”, “hough”, “loch”
• depicts an excited young child looking up to the man who makes “the best soup in the whole world”

As Grandpa's Soup progresses, there is a growing adult awareness that the soup and Grandpa won’t always be there. This tinges the poem with a hint of sadness halfway through.

Despite this, the poem remains upbeat as the child eats bowl after bowl, and speaks with joy about the ingredients Grandpa uses to craft his “glorious” meal.

The poem deals with themes of love, childhood, growing up, memory and nostalgia.

Looking for some quick revision? Try an interactive quiz or flashcards for National 5 English.

You can read Grandpa's Soup and more Jackie Kay poetry on the Scottish Poetry Library website.

Jackie Kay discusses her poem Grandpa's Soup with Zara Janjua. You can listen to episodes on all of the National 5 set text poems by Jackie Kay on BBC Sounds.

Grandpa's Soup is written in three stanzas of varying lengths, in free verse.

The poem is written in the first-person, in the voice of a child, and although many have taken this to be Jackie Kay's reflection on her own relationship with her Grandpa, in our Poetry Podcast she has stated that the poem was written from the perspective of her young son who was yearning for a bowl of his Grandpa's soup. However, it's less important to consider who the poem is about specifically, but rather the relationship that the people in the poem share and how that is shown. It is always helpful to remember not to expect the poet and the speaker's voice to be one and the same.

Is there a rhyme scheme in Grandpa's Soup?

The lack of rhyme hints at the disorganised and excitable thoughts of the young speaker. This effect is coupled with the question raised in stanza one which is answered in the final lines.

and its wee soft bits – / what are their names?

Despite the lack of rhyme, there is a strong sing-song rhythm to the poem. Kay uses repetition to reinforce the strong narrative voice - a child proudly telling the world that their Grandpa is the best:

• “perfect size” in stanza one
• “Grandpa, Grandpa” and “I will” in stanza two

Grandpa's Soup opens with a confident, definitive statement:

No one makes soup like my Grandpa’s

This establishes the admiration of the narrator as well as the childlike voice. “My Grandpa” further emphasises this with a possessive, proud tone. The speaker uses hyperbole to imply that nobody else could compete with their grandpa's soup, reinforced later in stanza two when the narrator refers to the broth as "the best soup in the whole world."

Listing and repetition

The list of ingredients and repetition of “perfect size” adds a song-like quality to the young narrator’s voice and tells us this is more than just good soup - it is perfection. The soup becomes a metaphor for the man; humble, very Scottish, and a source of comfort. The bond between the two characters and the strength of their love is clear.

Scots language

Scots words expand on the deep link between the speaker and their Grandpa and appear in the following stanza too. Despite their age difference, the child uses these same words as their Grandpa. They have this in common and the child is proud of the fact - the speaker even recalls how to sound the words out the same way that they were perhaps once taught.

Simile and metaphor

Stanza one ends with a mixture of a simile and a metaphor, with the hough compared to a rich island. Here the word choice of “rich” tells us the strength of the memories of their Grandpa, but as the image turns to metaphor with the soup sea, we see a hint of foreshadowing: as the hough “island” floats alone in the soup, we think of the isolation the narrator will one day experience when their Grandpa is no longer here.

Revise similes and metaphors for National 5 English here: Analysing similes and metaphors language in Critical Reading

The speaker's young age is again made clear as stanza two begins:

I say, Grandpa, Grandpa your soup is the best soup in the whole world.

The “I say”“and Grandpa says” phrasing is a reminder of the storytelling of young children and the singsong repetition of “Grandpa, Grandpa your soup is the best soup” has a playground feel to it. The speaker is really talking about how their Grandpa’s love feels, but they don’t quite have the maturity to express it in anything more than these simple boasts.

Grandpa dismisses the speaker’s proud advertising of his talents in line 12: "Och, Don’t be daft" This shows who he is as a character - modest, down-to-Earth, and straightforward; much like his soup.

The poem then shifts to give an insight into Grandpa’s point of view, and the maturity lacking elsewhere in the poem comes in as a sobering realisation that he won’t always be here. The joy of the first stanza and the opening lines of the second is thrown into sharp contrast. The happiness between them only highlights the unbearable sadness the speaker anticipates feeling when Grandpa is no longer there:

He knows when I’m older I will avoid soup altogether.

Word choice like “pine”, “desperately”, and “long” tells us how much he will be missed when he is gone and this adult voice hints at an impending sadness in the speaker's life. It isn’t really the soup that’s important to the child.

The stanza closes with a return to the happy tone, the satisfying, childish rhyme of “say” and “day”, hinting at the pleasure from the fourth bowl, and there is a final glimpse of hyperbole in the word “glorious”, ending with the image of an almost holy experience for the young child.

Just when it seems the poem has ended, the childish excitement bursts forth again and the question asked in stanza one is answered with an exclamation: “Barley!” The speaker can barely contain their excitement at finally understanding something more about the soup, and therefore about their Grandpa, as every small part of this meal brings them closer.

Barley! That’s the name of the wee soft bits. Barley.

Revise the effect of exclamation marks for National 5 Critical Reading here: Why do writers use question and exclamation marks?

Grandpa's Soup is a love song to both the speaker's Grandpa and the food he makes. Although simple, the soup is nourishing - much like the love shared between the two. We see Kay highlight this bond further through the use of Scots. Grandpa and the speaker seem to speak in the same way despite their age difference.

Although a snapshot of youth, the future adult world is hinted at by the knowledge that Grandpa, and his soup, won’t always be around. The contrast between the unadulterated bliss of a childhood spent eating soup with Grandpa and the sting of words like “pine” and “desperately” show us that leaving childhood means entering a world of painful loss.

The wistful tone of this poem comes from the speaker realising that, one day, they will look back on these special shared things with their Grandpa as memories:

…I will grow up and pine for it.

These include the shared Scots vocabulary between them ("och", "hough", "loch") and of course, the soup itself:

Every soup will become sad and wrong after he is gone.

Kay cleverly foreshadows this use of memory when the speaker forgets the name for barley, one of the key ingredients of Scotch broth. The implication is that although memories may fade, it is important to hold on to these things that connect us to our loved ones and our shared past.

Grandpa's Soup deals with some similar themes to Gap Year, dealing with love for family, growing up (from different perspectives), and a yearning for something lost as part of this. The grandfather's worried calls in Gap Year show us this grandfather-grandchild relationship from the other perspective:

"Your grandfather rings again to say / ‘There’s three warring factions in Bolivia, warn him/ against it. He canny see everything. Tell him to come home."

There are also similarities with Darling, in the bittersweet memories of simple pleasures, and how we hold on to loved ones through memory when they're no longer with us.

Keeping Orchids, Maw Broon Visits a Therapist, and Whilst Leila Sleeps all explore different, at times more complex, family situations, in contrast with the very simple and direct love exhibited in Grandpa's Soup.

Revise Grandpa's Soup and other poems by Jackie Kay with interactive quizzes and flashcards for National 5 English.