How does Simon Armitage explore apathy in his poems?
Simon Armitage successfully writes poems that are dense with mystery and vague meanings while maintaining a consistent level of apathy. His poems Hitcher, No Convictions and My Party Piece, are all poems that express enough emotion to come across as none at all, which therefore makes them apathetic. Armitage uses many writing techniques to make the characters in his poems apathetic such as the use of euphemisms and metaphors, the way in which his poems are structured as well as his own writing style.
The language used in these poems is also a clear indicator of the apathy expressed by the narrators of these pieces. The poem Hitcher is about the brutal and relentless murder of a hitchhiker
…show more content…
but the nature of how this poem is written reduces the impact of any emotional response.
The speaker recounts his day as if it were any other day and does not use any powerful or metaphorical language to describe hitting someone in the head “…six times with the krooklok,”. In this piece, the murder is made light of by using ironic humour to balance out any emotions that may be felt. Phrases such as “He’d said he liked the breeze,” and “You can walk from there,” make it evident that the speaker feels unaffected by what has happened which implies a strong level of apathy. No Convictions explores apathy differently; this poem displayed some zeal and passion from the speaker. The speaker of this poem compares his fist to a Swiss Army Knife and speaks of how he could “…bring about spontaneous applause,” but then annuls everything he states by saying he has “no cause,” which expresses his apathy to life in general. My Party Piece is similar as it is a speaker talking about his life story and “The torches he carried,” and “The lessons he learnt”. The language in …show more content…
the first stanza is dense to create a significant effect in a small amount of words, but then progresses to be less figurative and mostly literal and apathetic. The intensity of the first 4 stanzas packed with intense emotion is killed by the final stanza that brings effect to the reader that the speaker is actually a sad and lonely person that lacked any meaning in their lifetime. The contrast between the different feelings expressed in the poems My Party Piece and No Convictions emphasized how strong the feelings of apathy were for the speakers of each poem. The ambiguity of this selection of poems gives the reader an option to find their own meaning for each poem.
Apathy is explored in the murder that occurs in Hitcher, but also in the speaker himself. The speaker is “tired, under the weather,” which could imply that he’s sick of the world that he has to live in. In turn, the speaker attempts to avoid the world that he lives in and becomes disassociated with any emotion which leads to him murdering someone happier and more free than him with no remorse. My Party Piece is also an ambiguous piece which can be read as cruelly ironic. The speaker of this poem has nothing interesting to say about his life and warns others that they will hurt themselves if they try to speak about their lives in the time it takes for a match to burn. No Convictions is also ambiguous as the piece has no clear purpose and is just an anecdotal story of a person with no purpose that harbours a lot of
apathy. Hitcher was divided into 5 even stanzas; it can be said that this is only for the aesthetic as this piece lacks any poeticism and sound as normal speech when read aloud. The poem Hitcher, like No Convictions and My Party Piece, is written as a dramatic monologue. My Party Piece encompasses a certain level of rhyme but little structure within each stanza. Like Hitcher, this poem sounds like normal speech when read aloud due to the lack of poeticism. The stanzas follow no obvious pattern, with the 1st stanza being 5 lines, the 3rd stanza being 2 lines and the 2nd and final stanza being 4 lines long. No Convictions was split into 3 uneven stanzas with a small amount of half rhymes. This gave this piece some rhyme but wasn't poetic as such. The lack of structure in these two poems exhibits themes of apathy, lack of concern or enthusiasm, and comes off as more of a monologue piece rather than a poem. Simon Armitage has explored the theme of apathy in different, contrasting ways. This has given the reading audience a chance to live in the perspective of these different speakers and experience what apathy has the potential to feel like.
At this point, the speaker's newfound empathy toward the killer prompts his diatribe about American support of capital punishment. He begins with a hypothetical portrayal of an audience chaotically discussing the meaning of the word "kill," each person exclaiming "how they spell it" and "what it means to them." Subsequently, he recounts a story about insensitive reporters at a hanging, followed by a claim that "we throw killers in one grave / and victims in another. We form sides / and have two separate feasts." While the speaker may seem to be utilizing the description of the audience and the story of the reporters in order to denounce the mindset of his peers, he is in fact condemning his own former mentality. By denying five times that he is a witness, the speaker avoids the guilt that results from involvement in the death of another man. Through his repeated use of the phrase "I am not a witness," he essentially enables and catalyzes the execution of the killer, dismissing his humanity and conforming to the opinion that he deserves to be killed; however, once the speaker recognizes his fault and his conformity to this mindset, the tone of the poem suddenly shifts. The speaker's empathy for the killer reaches its maximum when he fully understands the pain of the condemned and finally sees the killer as his equal, which prompts his own admission of guilt and prior indifference: "I am a
The central characters in both of these works of literature tragedy are referring to the death of someone important to them although for very different reasons. “My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will” discusses the passing of Abraham Lincoln who was an advocate for freeing enslaved persons. This poem talks about the seeking and winning a prize, “...the prize we sought is won,” meaning the
Simon Armitage uses metaphor in many different ways in Not The Furniture Game and Mother.... He uses them to describe and build up characters, in most cases; he doesn’t use much narrative and instead uses metaphor to help you build up your own story, so the interpretation varies and creates a much larger story from such a small poem. Armitage uses metaphors as a simple listed comparison as well as an extended metaphor which continues throughout the whole poem. These lead to a strange structure as it is unrhymed. In Not The Furniture Game, there is also no obvious rhythm, however there are many poetic values of it such as how it is punctuated.
Figurative Language in used throughout poems so the reader can develop a further understanding of the text. In “The Journey” the author uses rhythm and metaphors throughout the poem. “...as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of the clouds..”(25-27). The author compares the star burning to finding your voice. Rhythm also develops the theme of the poem because throughout the story rhythm is presented as happy showing growing up and changing for the better is necessary and cheerful. In “The Laughing Heart” the author uses imagery and metaphors to develop the theme throughout the book. “There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness”(5-7). Always find the good out of everything, even it
This poem is divided into six stanzas with four lines each. The poem opens with “When the black snake flashed on the morning road” (1-2). The narrator uses “when” to signify the beginning of the story and introduces the snake as the main character. Labeling the snake as “black” gives it a dark and sinister appeal. The word “flashed” is used to demonstrate how fast the snake moved, and how quickly this event occurred. “Morning” is applied to the time of day that this event occurred. The narrator sees the snake quickly flash across the road. This sets up the scene in our minds. The “truck could not swerve” (3) implies that this was an accidental death. The poet uses “truck” to suggest a big vehicle that is unable to make quick moves or sudden stops. The narrator sees the snake flash across the road, into the path of a big truck that is unable to stop or swerve. “Death, that is how it happens” (4). The word “death” is italicized, emphasizing its importance. The p...
This theme that Wier explored is explained through the literary element of symbols. “You think because one dies then to die must be a good idea” (Wier 2) is the phrase that provides the biggest impact to set the tone for the poem. This expression begins to develop the theme in the poem by explaining to the reader that following the crowd may not always lead to favorable outcomes. The usage of symbols is used throughout the entire poem and is the basis of understanding the poem entirely. This type of literary element is one that is meant to make the reader think about a deeper meaning, rather than just the single, obvious meaning. “You were on the end of the ladder in a blue sky filled with litter” shows the reader that one who becomes a conformist in society is at the beginning of a road that is full of opportunities that can be given on the way, but the chances will never be received if one decides to follow other’s actions (Wier 8). “Stargazer” is a poem that is a symbol itself- a stargazer could be considered one who looks out at the opportunities they have at hand and takes their dreams to the next level of accomplishing
The poem makes an almost undecipherable, literal tone within the sound of the rhyme scheme, also creating calm peace with a mostly unpleasant situation. An example is the reoccurring line, “I have a rendezvous with Death” (Seeger 1, 5, 11, 20). The word “rendezvous” is a nice word where a person would meet somebody out of free will, even like two lovers seeing each other. Regardless, death is the unknown for many humans to fear. The narrator has arranged to meet with an experienced person known as death.
In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by the name of Langston Hughes. A well-known writer that still gets credit today for pomes like “ Theme for English B” and “Let American be American Again.”
Despite the differences between the characters in the poems, I will also go on to say how the preoccupation with death and violence all seem to stem from the apparently unstable minds of the characters; from the instability brought on by varying emotions such as grief, jealousy, resentment, guilt and madness, and the fact that these emotions may lead to paranoia.
The poem “The Lover Not Taken” share an identical structure with “The Road Not Taken,” with an extra stanza containing two lines where Farley throws in the punch line to make a point. Both the poems develop a unique pattern of rhyming, where the first, third and fourth line rhyme; also, second and the fifth line end with rhyming words. Despite the use of similar words such as “stood” (2) and “sigh” (16), Farley manages to create an unrestrained and dynamic lead character, while Frost portrays a slow pace. Farley, although portraying similar theme to that of Frost’s poem, intentionally contradicts the ideas in “The Road Not Taken,” only to unexpectedly choose the path “less travelled by” – the path of lust over love (Frost 19). She is willing to sacrifice an understanding lover for something that maybe a one night stand or worse. It is difficult t...
Moore opens the poem with the line “I, too, dislike it” as an ironic response to the title (Loeffelholz 359). The irony in this first line is so severe that it will make the hair on the back of the reader’s neck stand on end. But this is because it is so easy for the reader to want to automatically ascer...
In his narrative poem, Frost starts a tense conversation between the man and the wife whose first child had died recently. Not only is there dissonance between the couple,but also a major communication conflict between the husband and the wife. As the poem opens, the wife is standing at the top of a staircase looking at her child’s grave through the window. Her husband is at the bottom of the stairs (“He saw her from the bottom of the stairs” l.1), and he does not understand what she is looking at or why she has suddenly become so distressed. The wife resents her husband’s obliviousness and attempts to leave the house. The husband begs her to stay and talk to him about what she feels. Husband does not understand why the wife is angry with him for manifesting his grief in a different way. Inconsolable, the wife lashes out at him, convinced of his indifference toward their dead child. The husband accepts her anger, but the separation between them remains. The wife leaves the house as husband angrily threatens to drag her back by force.
The Taxi, by Amy Lowell, is an Imagist poem that relies heavily on imagery, rather than abstract ideas, to reveal meaning to the reader. The author uses free verse to allow the images and lines to speak for themselves and stand alone as individual lines. By doing so, each line offers its own tone and meaning, which then adds to the overall feel of the poem. Lowell wrote this poem to a love interest, clearly stating the meaning of the poem. She speaks as if the reader is the one being called after. The reader is entranced in her short poem filled with imagery to set the mood; the dire, last goodbye that seemed to separate the two forever. The poet's love for this person was also shown in her other works, and has made it very clear that there was a connection (Highleyman). This connection reveals the theme to be that she is lost without love. Before breaking the poem down into fragments for a line-by-line analysis, it can first be analyzed as a whole.
It is imperative for us, especially all poets and writers of prose that use language to express figurative meaning, to critique this theory because it only decreases creativity and denies that artist say anything beyond the literal with their words and metaphors. Davidson's ideas violently affront to the purpose of our craft. If we become completely dependent upon objective, literal meaning and learn to reject subjective, figurative meaning in words, we will consequently become less human and more detached from the world, from our natural surroundings, from our fellow human beings, and from the spontaneous, creative voices deep in our guts that often speak of truths literal expression cannot capture.
little to do with the actual emotions that are the subject of the poem. In "East