Overview
11:00: Baldovan focuses on two young boys taking a bus journey without adult supervision for the first time. Paterson uses this premise to explore the world and make a wider comment about the effects of change and growing up.
At first, the boys are enthusiastic and confident about their trip. They feel well-equipped to embark on an adventure. Paterson describing in a child-like manner how they count their money and imagine the sweets theyâll buy.
The tone changes as worry and insecurity set in, greatly affecting the speaker. The journey moves from being literal to being a metaphorical, almost surreal exploration of a future world. Everything is unfamiliar and occasionally threatening in this place.
The bus itself is destroyed. The boys return to their starting point to find their home altered and the protective, nurturing forces of mother and sisters gone.
In the poem, Paterson explores:
- the effects of growing up
- loss of innocence
- the ravaging effects of time
- the concept of the past and futures âas foreign countriesâ
The title of the poem, 11:00: Baldovan, reflects its concerns with both time and place. 11:00 is also significant, as it might allude to the 11th hour before the apocalypse.