Simon Armitage – Comparison of Two Poems

Simon Armitages poetry is basic ally all round weak objects and people which convey been twisted to mystify the objects and people seem eccentric and contradictory. His poetry makes hu spell racey people rally round the numbers and why it is a exchangeable this.I have been studying his poetry in prudence to see what is behind the poesys, all together I have analysed fin songs the poesy without a title which is sometimes called I am truly bo in that locationd this is active an incident involving a young male child at train in a intuition lab, Poem is about the good and the bad events that a man has through to his family, It aint what you do it what it does to you is about what a soulfulness has and has non d adept, Cataract operation is what a person sees after they have had a cataract operation and slightly his person is about personal belongings found on a deceased person man and how they represent his life story.Many of his poesys relate to each other Po em and I am genuinely bothered be both in sonnet exploit suggesting they relate to love in single way or another. In I am genuinely bothered love is expressed finished with(predicate) a thirteen twelvemonth senile boy in a science lab asking him to join him in an extra quotidian way, the incident is very uncertain and many images ar painted in the indorsers head with images about love exclusively in an odd way, he single-valued functions words such as strias and timeless existence, these repay the idea of love still Armitage uses these words to define a boy asking someone to marry him by burning their fingers.This is very odd scarce Armitage has twisted the sonnet form and the love words in to make the song a very extra nondescript song. The sonnet form is a resembling used in Poem, it is very surprising that the sonnet form is used in this song as the reader at the end of the poem is left with abomination due to what the adjoinence book in the poem h as done. I am very bothered and Poem atomic number 18 both about treating someone badly scarcely I am very bothered is in first person and is only about one extraordinary bicycle incident the fictional character did when he was thirteen only Poem is in third person and is about a lifetime of what an ordinary character did right and untimely.In this poem love is expressed through the characters family the reader substructure tell the character in the poem love his family as he praised his wife for every meal she made and invariably tucked his daughter up at night, the man seems like an ordinary family man merely at the end of each stanza from the sonnet it informs the reader of what he has done wrong in his life he punched her in the face, this makes the reader shocked and surprised of what the character has done in the poem.This makes the poem seem strange and peculiar. The comparison between the things the character did wrong and right is big but strange although the charac ter does a big bucks more good things than bad he is remembered for all the bad things he has done by the reader, this might be because the bad events ar at the end of each stanza and the bad events ar very shocking and deadly towards his family.The poet wants the reader to guess that the man is very figure, he reflects the man through the poem the title is very ordinary and boring honorable like the man, the use of the word and makes the poem seem ordinary, the use of words with only one syllable makes the poem seem ordinary and the rhythm of the poem is alike very plain and boring. Armitage uses iambic pentameter, he uses this in many of his poems like It aint what you do it what it does to you and Poem.Iambic pentameter is used in many sonnets its stiffing is hug drug beats per disceptation. It aint what you do it what it does to you is a poem about what a man has and hasnt done. To describe these two things he has used two distinguishable types of nomenclature coll oquial and formal. Armitage has used colloquial linguistic communication before in I am very bothered, in that instance he uses it to describe what a character has done when he was thirteen, a thirteen year old would probably use colloquial nomenclature.But in It aint what you do it what it does to you he uses colloquial language to describe what the character has not done bummed and rickety, this explains to the reader that it is nothing special that he has done. Armitage even uses this language in the title Aint. Using formal language to describe what the character has done it gives some feel and thought into the poem inertia, toyed and padded. It too gives the reader a sense of wonder and awe. The structure of the poem is very plain and straightforward, just like you would see on a normal poem you would read it uses four quatrains.Armitage normally uses the structure of the poem to give his poems some feel and compassion, for manikin using sonnets in I am very bothered and Poem but for It aint what you do it what it does to you he uses a straight forward structure, it might be because he wants the reader to consider the poem is very ordinary and what the character has done is very ordinary too. Throughout the utmost stanza of the poem there is some enjambment trivial cascading sensation/somewhere deep down us as the lines flow from one to another, mirroring the effect of the fluid feeling cascading sensation he is trying to describe. on that point is also some enjambment in the middle of the poem describing something the character has done, skimmed flat stones across black moss, the enjambment gave the affect of the stones bounce like they do on black moss. The alliteration of the s does this also by using the s every two syllables. Alliteration is also used in I am very bothered in this circumstance Armitage uses alliteration to describe a burning sensation by using a b right Bunsen burner/branded/burning.Some of the uttermost(a) stanzas in Ar mitage poems refer impale to the title in It aint what you do it what it does to you the persist line of the poem is That feeling I mean, not only is at a line which makes the reader refer back to the title it is also a type of question. It is asking the reader if they k forthwith what the character is talking about. Armitage also does this in Poem Sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that. Armitage characteristically refuses to opine the man leaving the reader with a question.The last line refers back to the title in a poem called Cataract operation, the last line is I drop the blind but not before a family of half dozen hens struts through the gate, looks around the judicature for a refer lens, in this short passage there is two references neat back to the cataract one where the character drops the blind and where the hens look around the courtyard for a contact lens, in this instance an image is painted in the readers head of hens pecking around a garden just like a bl ind person would be doing when trying to find something. Cataract operation is about a process line becoming a pantomime this is very economic as in just one word it illustrates how lively, colourful and socialize the washing line is. Armitage uses a lot of metaphors to show how lively the washing line is, the metaphors give the reader a clear but strange image of what the washing line is doing the cancan of a rara skirt, the monkey business of a app atomic number 18l. In this passage alone there ar two metaphors within it the skirt isnt in reality doing the cancan but it seems and looks like it is and the shirt is not really doing monkey business it just looks as if it is.By using metaphors it paints images inside the readers head of what the washing line looks like, it looks alive This is the only poem where metaphors make the ordinary extraordinary it takes a very imaginative mind to ideate of metaphors. As well as the passage containing metaphors it also contains proso popoeia the cancan is unremarkably done by people. Personification is very rargonly used in the poems Armitage writes, the poems I have read that be written by Armitage are all about people anyway so personification is not needed. There is also rhyme in Cataract operation hens and lens, skirt and shirt.But the rhymes in the poem are disguised as they are not where you would expect them to be, Armitage may be using this to represent the poem the poem being strange and un studyable. The simile at the start of Cataract operation is a visual representation of the sun rising and being born for the next day The sun comes like a head through last nights turtleneck. , this is the only simile of the poem, another simile is seen in rough his person, this simile symbolises decease a rolled-up note of explanation planted there like a spray carnation.These two similes are to do with two very different things even though Cataract operation and to the highest degree his person are very simila r poems they both have riming couplets inside them and are both 20 lines wrong, but they are also very different About his person is all about oddment, violence and decisiveness but Cataract operation is about liveliness, entertainment and magic. The two similes represent this. About his person is about personal belongings found on a deceased man and how they represent his life. The language used in the poem is very plain and ordinary, maybe representing the character in the poem.The poem is basically a bring up of what has been found, very simple and straight forward unlike Cataract operation where it is very hard to understand what is happening. In Poem a list is also used with the repetition of the word and, it makes the poem seem ordinary just like About his person. End fillet words are used in the poem Stopped represents the finality of the man but is used in the poem to describe an latitude watch that was found on the man. That was everything is also and end stopping id iomatic expression at the end of the poem, this cuts off the poem dead just like the character was.The full stops found on the man give the reader serial publication of pictures or images that are factual snapshots. The choice of words in this list shows how a poet can play with multiple meanings to great effect. The title itself can be read in two ways, as can the final line. Many of the words have very violent overtones of finality expiry, beheaded and all of these meanings are consciously worked on by the poet. These words describe objects that are found on the man, this is a bit humourous as the man that the objects are found on is dead.All the poems I have analysed that are written by Armitage all link together in one way or another. At first impressions Armitage makes his poems look extraordinary but when looked in depth the poem is actually ordinary but in a twisted way, e. g. in Poem the reader envisages that the character is a very nasty man by doing very horrible thin gs to his family. Armitage does this by move the nasty events the character does at the end of each line, the reader hence remembers the character by what he has done wrong.But when the poem is looked into, the criterion of good things the man did nicely actually overrules the things he did nastily. The character now looks like an ordinary man but as the nasty events are out of the blue it makes the reader think that the character is very malevolent. Armitage uses metaphors, similes, personification and imagery to make the poems he writes extraordinary. Imagery is the key thing in poetry, if the reader can not estimate the poem coming to life then the poem is useless, Armitage uses imagery to paint images inside readers head that makes the poem seem strange and odd.Armitages poetry makes the reader think twice of what is project in the poems. Colloquial and formal language is also used to describe what a character has done in a poem, if Armitage wants the reader to think that s omething is boring he uses colloquial language and if he wants the reader to think that something is amazing and exciting then he uses formal language. Armitage makes the reader think what he wants them to think and from this he controls the readers mind to think of something that is very extraordinary.Simon Armitage likeness of Two PoemsSimon Armitage writes about a range of different topics. In the two poems I have chosen, he focuses on people and personal experience. I will briefly describe both poems and show how each poem reveals something about Human genius.I will begin with the poem About his person. This poem lists all the items a dead man had upon him when he was discovered. In many ways, these objects represent the mans life. It reads like a police report. Although the poem cannot tell us anything about the mans thoughts, it tells us a lot about the mans life. The poem is deceptively simple.There is a pun in the title. About his person is a formal way of saying he had o n him but it also stresss that the poem is about a dead person. This is an use of how Armitage uses ambiguous language. Also, his technique of colloquial language makes his poems more meaningful. Both poems are about ordinary people. Another example of ambiguous language isA give-away photograph stashed in his wallet,A souvenir banked in the heart of a locket.We ask ourselves, is the photograph stashed in his wallet the equivalent of a keepsake in a locket, or were they two separate items. The photographs makes us think that he may have had love ones. After all it is benevolent nature to love someone.Armitage uses a simile in line twelve. Up until line twelve the diction is factual and plain. In line 12, he compares the note of explanation to a spray carnation. Carnations being funeral flowers, are associated with death or a funeral and reminds us that that somehow the man died. The use of language points towards how humans experience depression and even felo-de-se. In this poem , each item is described precisely.Armitage begins the list with a normal 5.50 in the mans pocket, exactly. He mentions a library tantalise on its date of expiry. The card is invalid. Just like the mans life it means nothing, its worthless. The poem also mentions a mortise lock also known as a death lock, an analogue watch, self-winding, stopped. These items are listed in terms of death. Could this list of mortal items be a reason for a human to commit suicide? We are intrigued by the final line, A final demand, what does this mean? The postcard is also a mystery but it reasons family or loved ones.A ring of white unweathered skin, No property No silver. Obviously, the man used to wear a ring but he no longer does. Was he divorced? Or maybe his wife died. We can link those last few lines to line six about the first of April (i.e. April fools day.) This indicates that someone was fooled. Perhaps, he was fooled by his wife. The last line, That was everything, finalises the poem. H is whole life shown by the list, everything.The poem is structured in rhyming couplets. It is short and precise and consists of 10 two line stanzas. The poem has a simple form. The poet uses imagery e.g. The photo in his wallet leads us to imagine that he had loved ones. The carnations make us imagine a history service. We are born and than we die, it is nature. No gold or silver but a mark where a ring had once been indicates a failed relationship. He was being selfish if, he had committed suicide but we are still sympathetic. The poem gives a pessimistic outlook on life.The poem is sad, mourning and depressing. There isnt practically feeling but there is a lot of meaning. The tone is deadpan. There is a slow rhythm to indicate death and sorrow. The rhyming within couplets gives an air of finality and completeness.The poem I am very bothered is written differently. It is like a deport confession. The colloquial language used is very appropriate. There is not much rhyme in this p oem. It is sort of simple just as a thirteen-year-old boy would write he uses words such as clumsy. The first stanza tells us he is bothered about many things he has done in his life and not least the time he burned her hand in the chemistry lab. The word chemistry makes us think of love and emotion. The poem is typical of how far a human being would go to get some-ones attention but we have to remember that the boy is only thirteen and incapable of expressing his love for the missy he wished to marry. The miss is anonymous, why? , Perhaps to avoid embarrassment. He contend the handles of the scissors as if it were a game. An example in this poem of Armitages ambiguous language is the naked lilac flame. The two different meanings I have discovered are, the flame is unprotected and can do damage, and the boy may have been thinking of a naked girl. The author addresses the girl as you as if she was present.The words unrivalled stench and eternity emphasise how serious the burn ing actually was. Was the boy branding the girl as his just as farmers brand their herd eternity is a powerful word. It means forever but it also makes us think of eternity rings. did they meet in later like and get married? The girl will be scarred. She will always remember the incident. The poem is quite personal but also sarcastic. The poem is about forgiveness, shame and guilt. The writer manipulates us in the last stanzaDont believe me, please, if I sayThat was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen,Of asking you if you would marry me.He asks us not to believe him but I think it is obvious that he wants us to believe him. He is felling guilty.The poem begins with and slow sorrowful rhythm but speeds up towards the end. There is a pleading, sorrowful and emotional tone.The first stanza is a bout the planning of what he will do. It is almost as if he takes a deep breath before he starts the second stanza where he actually carries out the experiment. It describes what he does an d what happens. The third stanza is about his regrets. The poem reads like a script and there is some rhyme. As I mentioned before the word naked gives us two different images, as does the word eternity. Is a sign of never-ending love but we may also think of eternity rings.The poem goes from the writer conclusion enjoyment in what he did to his confession of what he did. The poem is an example of human nature i.e. The boy loves the girl, is uncapable of showing his feelings and so he hurts her. It seems ironic but it happens. This poem reveals that people make mistakes and usually the want forgiveness.Armitages use of language has helped reveal a lot about human nature particularly in the second poem, which is quite typical, of what a thirteen year old boy might do to gets a girls attention.