“Crabbit Old Woman”, is also entitled  ”Look Closer Look Closer Nurse, Kate, Open Your Eyes or What Do You See?” The authorship of the prescribed poem is uncertain.  It has been pointed out by critics that the author is Phyllis McCormack. The tone of the poem is persuasive; the speaker of the poem is an infirm woman in the geriatric ward of a Dundee nursing home. The poem was  first published in the  poetry anthology Elders (Reality Press, 1973) edited by Chris Searle. Searle is uncertain about the authorship of the piece, but voices it as the genuine writing of an old woman. “Crabbit Old Woman” had later featured in the Christmas edition of “Beacon House News” .It was a magazine of the Northern Ireland Mental Health Association.

This was the Lady’s gift to generations to come. The poem has been oft quoted in works meant for caring for the elderly and underlines the need to enable them to lead a life of self-esteem. It comes across as a poniter to humane treatment where man is caught in the rat race of survival of the fittest.

As per  the Daily Mail ( 12 March 1998), “Phyllis McCormack’s son claims that his mother wrote it while working at the Sunnyside Hospital in Montrose in the 1960s, where she submitted it anonymously to a small magazine intended just for Sunnyside with the title “Look Closer Nurse.”

The term ‘crabbit’ is Scottish slang for ‘grumpy’ or ‘miserable’. If the word ‘crabbit’ is viewed as an English word, it also comes across as a portmanteau word that is a cross between ‘crab’ and ‘rabbit’. The poem comes across as a criticism of the perception of people in general when it begins with :

What do you see, what do you see?
Are you thinking, when you look at me-

Does the act itself result in contemplation, or does it amount to a mere mechanical act of seeing. She is grumpy senile woman who is now not sharp as she used to be. She has mellowed down owing to age, and is now uncertain of habit too. She dribbles her food over, and is characterized by an incorrigible hearing disability. People insist that she do things on her own without comprehending her predicament. Her memory and absent-mindedness are now inversely proportional to each other. The frail lady keeps losing her stockings and shoes. She now lets anyone handle her according to their will placing implicit trust in them. This is the case, whether she is unresisting or not.

She tells the nurse to open her eyes, though she looks at her. The nurse has to look beyond her seeming vegetative existence. The woman has with her years of experience, and a history that defines her. She was once defined through the love of her dear ones.

I’ll tell you who I am as I sit here so still!
As I rise at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of 10 with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters, who loved one another-
A young girl of 16 with wings on her feet,
Dreaming that soon now a lover she’ll meet,
A bride soon at 20- my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep.
At 25 now I have young of my own
Who need me to build a secure happy home;
A woman of 30, my young now grow fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last;
At 40, my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my man’s beside me to see I don’t mourn;
At 50 once more babies play around my knee,
Again we know children, my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead,

The poem has similarities with Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror” that drowns a young girl within its frame. And also with Margaret Atwood’s “This is a Photograph of Me” where the poetess requests the readers to locate her in the photograph where she is not visually visible. The lines suggest how Nature and human nature seem to be cruel to human beings as their health deteriorates. In a competitive and manipulative era, people are driven by the business principle of profit and loss.

Therefore, since the aged have no utility value, they are viewed as objects to be relegated than regarded. In such a stance, love transforms into mechanical duty and responsibility turns to burden. She shudders as she looks towards the future. Her young ones are now rearing  their younger ones. She sees in them a picture of herself, and her heart goes out to them. For, this trend will go on and on in .Though history is individual at times, it also repeats, and has its characteristic universality.

She has a ‘stone’ now where there was a heart. Perception has rendered it so. The body seems like a carcass as it is static. It is defined by movement, and not by emotions.” The body is crumbled, grace and vigor depart,” However, the speaker  ascertains that a young girl resides within this body even now, who has a future to look forward to. The pains and joys are still afresh. Though her heart is battered through harsh experiences, it is capable of swelling through intense emotions. She is just young enough to live life again and whole-heartedly. The past seems to be short-lived,as she has not had enough of it. She urges with  the nurse to see her. Ironically ,the job of a nurse is to  look after people. Here ,the nurse far from ‘looking after’, does not even heed to ‘see’. Nevertheless, she accepts the ultimate truth in Life: Death, that nothing can last. And yet somehow makes the resolution with a die-hard spirit:

And I’m loving and living life over again.