A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy
grew in my mind,
which turned the hairs on my head to filthy snakes,
as though my thoughts
hissed and spat on my scalp.

My bride’s breath soured, stank
in the grey bags of my lungs.
I’m foul mouthed now, foul tongued,
yellow fanged.
There are bullet tears in my eyes.
Are you terrified?

Be terrified.
It’s you I love,
perfect man, Greek God, my own;
but I know you’ll go, betray me, stray
from home.
So better by far for me if you were stone.

I glanced at a buzzing bee,
a dull grey pebble fell
to the ground.
I glanced at a singing bird,
a handful of dusty gravel
spattered down.

I looked at a ginger cat,
a housebrick
shattered a bowl of milk.
I looked at a snuffling pig,
a boulder rolled
in a heap of shit.

I stared in the mirror.
Love gone bad
showed me a Gorgon.
I stared at a dragon.
Fire spewed
from the mouth of a mountain.

And here you come
with a shield for a heart
and a sword for a tongue
and your girls, your girls.
Wasn’t I beautiful?
Wasn’t I fragrant and young?

Look at me now.

Analysis

Once again, we have a poem from Carol Ann Duffy, superimposing her thoughts about a fictional and mythical creature onto our minds, just like she did with the biblical figure of Salome [give that a read if you can find it and see the similarities]. But now we have another character from ancient folklore, the Medusa.

By all means, have a look where I got the words for the poem from at:

https://thescallopshell.wordpress.com/tag/carol-ann-duffy

so it can aid your study, but be aware, not every response to a poem is the same as the next, so no answer is a wrong, or bad answer.

So, to this poem.

The Medusa in Greek mythology, was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as having the face of a hideous human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazing directly into her eyes would turn onlookers to stone. Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head, which retained it’s ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. Clearly this was a dangerous beast but Duffy treats these characters from ancient lore in a modern context, adding things in to bring her to life and give her a modern attitude and lifestyle.

The poem begins with “a suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy” growing in the mind of Medusa, as Duffy writes in the first person putting herself in the mind and body of the Medusa. This seed of suspicion growing in her mind makes “the hairs on [her] head” develop into “filthy snakes, as though [her] thoughts” actually act like a snake and hiss and spit on her head.
If you have ever felt that emotion when suspicion in the mind gives way to proof and then anger, leading to you fuming about something, then you know something of what Duffy’s Medusa is feeling as she talks. She describes her “soured” breath “in the grey bags of [her] lungs.” Such use of grey scale colour adds to the picture in the mind of the reader.

These are dark thoughts that are hissing their way through her mind. This is an anger personified into the reptilian kingdom and these bad thoughts lead her to become more “foul mouthed” and “foul tongued, yellow fanged.” This is the response of a modern angry young woman and reflects the way the women of today can act. In some parts of the UK culture, we call them “ladettes,” the sort of young woman who is not afraid to say it as it is, to say her piece and do so in a foul mouthed manner. This is indeed, a very modern Medusa.

She tells us to “be terrified” because her feelings spread now to loving someone, an individual. She says “it’s you I love, perfect man, Greek God,” reflecting the original story of Perseus, the Greek hero from ages gone by, the epitome of perfection, the good looking, physically fit, young hero of then superimposed into the modern world. But at the same time as she loves the man, she knows that one day he will “go, betray [her], stray from home” like some men do, so this now shares an image of the scorned woman, the woman who trusts a man and then is treated harshly, hence the negative thoughts turning to snakes on the head. She feels as if it would be “better by far for [her] if [she] were stone.”

But then she reminisces about a past event. The tense changes to past tense because there is a story to be told in the next verse. She reflects on staring at “a buzzing bee” and how “a dull grey pebble fell to the ground.” Words like “dull” and “grey” are negative words denoting a sadness in the heart of this woman as she glances “at a singing bird.” Then the image of the “dusty gravel” and the “ginger cat,” coupled with the “housebrick” make the reader realise that her life is not a good one. And so the negativity continues as she feels like a “shattered a bowl of milk,” a “snuffling pig” and a “boulder rolled in a heap of shit.” The language she uses is something that is prominent in her poetry. She writes as she would say it and to me, that is an endearing feature of her poetry. You feel the anger, the resentment, the bitter hatred in her poems and although they are predominantly negative, they show a woman in command of her spoken and written language who can use her skills extremely effectively.

As a reader, you have to be able to see the metaphors used and write about them. You do this by deciding what one actually symbolizes. If the words are “the traffic was murder,” then you get a certain image in your head. Actually there are two used; the traffic and the concept of murder, but the metaphor mixes the two to create the one image in the mind of the reader. Duffy, in this poem, says that she, Medusa, stares “in the mirror” and says that somehow, her love has “gone bad.” The words “love gone bad” symbolize the positive being turned into the negative. In metaphorical terms, the concept of love and the concept of badness are merged to share an extremely painful and negative emotion.

All this rage and anger flare up in the Gorgon as she stares “at a dragon” [possibly another woman] and as she does so, we read that fire, itself symbolic of rage and anger, spews “from the mouth of a mountain.” It is like when you get increasingly angry and then at some point, the volcano erupts and it comes spewing out of your mouth; all that resentment and bitterness flowing like lava from your very own volcanic explosion.

Up to now, this has all been about her, about her love “gone bad,” but now she changes tack and irony and sarcasm, often called the “lowest form of wit,” are used to great effect. “And here you come,” she says, “with a shield for a heart and a sword for a tongue and your girls, your girls.” She is signalling out the man at the heart of this break up, the man who has caused her pain and her use of ironic comment is meant, on purpose here. There is a literary argument that goes something like this: when you write something, do you know from the beginning what you are going to write? If you do, then your writing is “intentional.” The literary theory of the “intentional fallacy” opposes that idea, as does the theory of the “unintentional fallacy,” whereby one can say that when you begin creating something, you cannot guarantee that every word is what you intended. Here, Duffy intends, in my opinion, to be sarcastic, to show and share the anger, the bitterness between her and her man.

“Wasn’t I beautiful?” She asks. “Wasn’t I fragrant and young?” In other words, I was as good as these young ones you date now, but “look at me now.” Those last words in the poem are her saying “look at me now,” or “look at what you have done to me, look what your double dealing and deceit has caused.” In a sense, she is right as well, to say this, for in relationships, we deal with each other in different ways. When it is all going nice, both persons in the couple love each other, care for each other, think of the other before themselves. But, this man she once knew, her Perseus, is a deceitful man. He is, in Duffy’s mind, a typical man. She is a feminist and comes from that literary background, so one has to immediately assume that what she is trying to do here is make a connection between how a woman is treated by a man normally and how this can turn her into something nasty, something resembling the Medusa of old.

It is, in effect, a poem that hints at the idea that all men are bad and are liable to do the same thing to a woman. But, what it does not do is say this directly. A woman reading this may think yes, how true of every man I have ever dated. A man reading this may think there is no wonder the man has left if that is what she is like inside. So, what is originally written as a poem to merge the ideas of the scorned woman and the Medusa of old becomes something that ends up showing that the old adage is accurate; hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, which is a slightly misquoted line by William Congreve that when said in full, should be “Heav’n has no rage like love to hatred turn’d nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.”

HORSE WHISPERER
Andrew Forster

They shouted for me
when their horses snorted, when restless
hooves traced circles in the earth
and shimmering muscles refused the plough.
My secret was a spongy tissue, pulled bloody
from the mouth of a just-born foal,
scented with rosemary, cinnamon,
a charm to draw the tender giants
to my hands.

They shouted for me
when their horses reared at burning straw
and eyes revolved in stately heads.
I would pull a frog’s wishbone,
tainted by meat, from a pouch,
a new fear to fight the fear of fire,
so I could lead the horses,
like helpless children, to safety.

I swore I would protect
this legacy of whispers
but the tractor came over the fields
like a warning. I was the life-blood
no longer. From pulpits
I was scorned as demon and witch.
Pitchforks drove me from villages and farms.

My gifts were the tools of revenge.
A foul hex above a stable door
so a trusted stallion could be ridden
no more. Then I joined the stampede,
with others of my kind,
to countries far from our trade.

Still I miss them. Shire, Clydesdale, Suffolk.
The searing breath, glistening veins,
steady tread and the pride,
most of all the pride.

Analysis

Firstly, there is a link I want to share with you to the man’s page. Check this out:

http://andrewforsterpoems.blogspot.co.uk/p/gcse.html

According to good old Wikipedia, a horse whisperer is a person who is a practitioner of something called “Natural Horsemanship,” which is also known as horse whispering. It is is a collective term for a variety of horse training techniques which have seen rapid growth in popularity since the 1980s. I will take their word for it, but it helps us to understand this poem.

The techniques used in this practice differ in their precise ideas but generally share principles of developing a rapport with horses, using communication techniques derived from observation of free-roaming horses and rejecting abusive training methods of the past. Therefore there will be some who accept these people and what they do and there will be people who will reject them out of sight as nothing short of fools.

But, the horse whisperer will tell you [please see the film on http://www.putlocker.com to see what I mean] that this is a way to communicate naturally with a horse. I suppose it would be normal, should I ever get on a horse again, for me to go up to the beast, take the reins and face him [or her] head on. It is the sort of thing I would do, so that I can look the thing in the eyes and say “now, are you and I going to enjoy each other’s company and get on?” It is what I would probably do and have done on the one occasion as a young man, when I got the chance to ride. That horse, called Monty, and I, soon hit it off and were blasting down the sands at Mablethorpe in the UK. I loved that thrill of uniting with the horse as we thundered down the beach at pace. I felt like a race horse jockey, flying down the straight at Doncaster, where I lived at the time. It was fabulous.

So, I read this poem and all sorts of things pop into my mind. The first one is how Forster describes how he was “shouted for” by the owners of the horses in the past, how they wanted his services at some point, how they trusted him to communicate with their horses “when restless hooves traced circles in the earth and shimmering muscles refused the plough.” It is such a beautiful image in the mind of the reader that is being painted here in the mind of the reader and shows how one human being can communicate with an animal from another kingdom. But he had a secret tool for ensuring that the horse was curious enough to come forward to him in the first place, so one asks if this is a true horse whisperer.

He says he used, back in those days, “a spongy tissue, pulled bloody from the mouth of a just-born foal, scented with rosemary, cinnamon,” and how it worked all the time like “a charm to draw the tender giants” towards him and into a relationship of mutual respect. The repeated words of “they shouted for me” is an interesting technique to use as well because he wants to get over the notion that this was not fluke, or some random thing he was able to do once. No, he was able to join his heart and the heart of the beast on whatever occasion he so wished. He says that he would “pull a frog’s wishbone, tainted by meat, from a pouch” and use it to make the horse curious of him, to encourage the horse forward. It is an interesting trick that he is using here and his description is as vivid as it gets in this poem.

This continues as the verses progress, as he led the horses so that they could “fight the fear of fire.” This line is extremely alliterative and made this reader stop in his tracks and react positively. I love moments of enforced alliteration in poems because it allows the reader to trip the light fantastic with the words being said. It is a very good use of language as well by the poet. He says that he could always “lead the horses, like helpless children, to safety.” Again, the use of the simile to compare the horse to a helpless child shows a knowledge of animal husbandry that is second to none. It is no wonder then that he then says that at one point in his life, he swore he “would protect this legacy of whispers,” because he sees such tactics and actions as being important in the natural world.

But as is always the case with these poems about animals and agriculture [this poem does remind me of Digging by Seamus Heaney and some of the classic Ted Hughes poems I have studied over the years] he then spells out the menace of this natural world, which is the man made machine, in this case the “the tractor” that at some point, “came over the fields like a warning.” Again he uses a simile for comparison and the effect in the reader is one that should make them think of the conflict between the natural and the man made world. If it does, then it is a very successful poem. If not, then either the reader does not understand the poem or the wording is not direct enough for them to understand it further.

He then says that because of the changes in attitudes at the time, he sees himself as “the life-blood no longer.” Because things have changed and people do not trust the horse whisperer any more, he feels isolated and alone in a world of machinery and mass production. This part of the poem is clearly a critique of this dichotomy [look it up please] between the natural and the man made. He says that “from pulpits [he] was scorned as demon and witch,” which is an intriguing use of language. The reader has images of a ‘demon’ and a ‘witch’ based on their reading and viewing habits, so to use those words makes the modern day revulsion of his skills all the more powerful. He adds that “pitchforks drove [him] from villages and farms” into isolation and ingratitude from the farming community. His gifts and skills set were no longer needed or even considered as useful.

Imagine that for a moment. You get to the point where you leave school and you have a list of skills learnt, but then when you start work, your employer tells you that everything you have learnt is useless to him. That would be devastating to you and it is the same here with the horse whisperer. He says in defiance that “my gifts were the tools of revenge.” He would place “a foul hex [spell] above a stable door so a trusted stallion could be ridden no more.” If he actually did this then it was as an act of defiance, but I doubt he did so because these skills would not have been in his skill set. I think it s likely that he wanted to put the hex on to make life for the horse owners increasingly impossible, so that they would see the error of their ways.

His life as a horse whisperer had effectively, come to an end, but he remembers the time when those who did this and were rejected by the community would have emigrated to somewhere where their skills were accepted. He says he “joined the stampede, with others of [his] kind, to countries far from [his] trade” to be able to use his skills and the word “stampede,” being a word associated with horses, signifies an act of defiance, of freedom, of a desire to live as he wants to and not as others say. But as he and others did this, he would still have some regrets and that appears in the final verse where we see him saying he actually still misses the “Shire, Clydesdale [and] Suffolk” which are all breeds of magnificent horses; large, bulky, flaring animals who plod in front of beer carts in adverts with their hairy, hoven feet. They are truly a magnificent sight to get close to if you get the chance, with their “searing breath, glistening veins, steady tread” and the one thing that determines they are noticed, their sense of worth, of pride, something the writer [and/or the horse whisperer] feels too, a pride in knowing and being able to appreciate such animals in all occasions.

This poem therefore, with one person talking all the way through is a sad poem but one that shares negative feelings and emotions very well. There is sadness and there is regret, but there is also admiration “and the pride, most of all the pride” that comes with being able to get up close and personal with such a magnificent animal as the horse.

I have long been a fan of John Agard’s poetry [somewhere I have my own Half Caste poem done from a Yorkshireman’s point of view; flat caps and all] and when I saw this in the list today it made my heart jump and my mouth smile that smile that tells me I am going to enjoy this.

But then I tried to read it and although I understood it ….. a little ….. I was left thinking how a group of 15 year old students might take it if from certain parts of the world. So, to analyse it properly, I think we need to hear the man himself, reading his poem. The following video has him do that for 2 minutes and 14 seconds and then there is nothing for 3 minutes, so turn it off when he ends it and come back to this analysis, which I shall now complete and add later.

Here is the video…

Analysis

Like any good John Agard poem, this is written in a mixture of Standard English and Nonstandard, or Creole English. But as you no doubt heard on the video clip, he means this to be sung in places as well, as he and the reader get to grips with the idea that what we deem to be history is not necessarily that of the Caribbean man. We live in different parts of the world, in different cultures, with different faiths, beliefs, practices and ideologies, so we need to learn each others’ way of living and understand it so we can live together more peacefully.

The word “Dem” for example is the nonstandard version of “them” so readers have to understand that this is the island way of speaking where he hails from, the language he is used to using. If he was from the Philippines for example, then it might be written in Tagalog, which is similar in that it uses some English words, but mixes the local language of the place and time. He is saying that “Dem” refers to the people in authority, then and now, back in the times of slavery and of now. The masters, for that is what they called themselves, stated what was considered as “history” and it is also true that the old adage is true as well, that “history is written by the victorious.”

So, to the poem, which reflects a single character speaking about his own cultural identity. This is an island man very much akin to the poem of the same name by his wife. He is saying that he has been told what his history is. But, he wants to “check out” or investigate his own understanding of his genealogy and history. The white rulers of so long ago set down in words that there are certain dates to know about, like “1066” and subjects like “Dick Whittington and his cat” when learning history in school or in the home.
But Agard is arguing that this is only a one sided view of history. He is saying that this is not enough, for he was never told when he was growing up of the more important aspects of his own historical and cultural background. To him, this one sided teaching he has received has in effect, “blind [ed him] to [his] own identity.” It has made him a half taught individual with little concept of his own culture. He uses the example of “Toussaint L’Ouverture” [look this up] to say that this is one thing he has not been told about. Then we get the explanation of who this is and why he considers it important to know. He says that “Toussaint” was “a slave with vision,” who “lick back Napoleon battalion.” Clearly, this person and the heroics mentioned here is an important factor in Guyanese/Haitian culture but this is the sort of thing that British History lessons do not cover. It is a criticism therefore, of how we teach our children about the world. It is a criticism of what we consider to be important to teach our children.

Then he uses a second person in the form of “Nanny de maroon.” To this English teacher,this is the second name I have never heard of and I have studied cultures across the world, so here we see Agard proving his point, that again, this is something, or someone, worthy of inclusion into an educational package when growing up, or indeed, at a later stage of a person’s education. He is asking us to consider why he has not been taught these things. He is proud enough to say that he has learnt about “Lord Nelson and Waterloo” but to never be taught anything about “Shaka de great Zulu” is wrong, especially when British education does at times cover people like “Columbus and 1492.” In a way, he is saying that we should not be that choosy, that we should know about all the different people across the world who have fought or stood up for a cause, who are famous in their own countries, for when we do that, we can learn to live a life where we understand each other a little more. Simply knowing about a few individuals makes for a person who knows very little.

He uses the example of the “Caribs and de Arawaks” to make his point. Again, this writer knows very little about what happened to these people. He knows who they are and from what part of the world they hail, but does not know the finer details about how they were treated by their oppressors at their time of conflict in their history. It is an interesting comparison he is making too because most of us know about “Florence Nightingale” and her actions in the Crimean conflict, as well as nursery rhymes like “ole King Cole” and how he was a “merry ole soul” but we are sadly lacking in knowledge about “Mary Seacole” simply because she is not considered by an educational system to be of merit.
Now that is a pity, for she was from the Caribbean herself, travelled to the Crimean conflict even though she was advised not to and was, in Agard’s words, “a healing star among the wounded, a yellow sunrise to the dying.” The use of these beautiful metaphors here is brilliant in describing her actions. She has to be as important as Florence Nightingale but is forgotten, because she was black. This is a theme to Agard’s other poems so it is not a surprise to see it here.

This theme of inherent racism within institutions like countries, is continued throughout the poem as we see Agard telling us that he was in his childhood, taught about what the British wanted him to know about, what they considered to be important. But he adds a note of defiance at the same system he has helped over the years when he adds that “dem tell me wha dem want to tell me, but now I checking out me own history.” This is him saying that it is okay to teach our children what we think is important in terms of our history, but what is more important is to be as culturally diverse as possible. Simply keeping it to the white victor is not enough. Our children need to be taught something of other identities, something of other cultures, so that mutual understanding can be sought by everyone, so that we can all live as individuals in a multicultural setting.

He adds at the end that he is now, in his own time and at his own pace, “carving out [his own] identity” because he is learning now about what he considers to be important, so this poem ends up being a rally cry to us all to be learners in the modern world, to be people who are not prepared to simply accept what we are taught, people who question the authenticity of what we are taught, people who say to themselves, “today I carve out my identity.”

The Clown Punk – Simon Armitage

I have always loved the poetry of Simon Armitage and used to teach the poems of Duffy and Armitage each year, so part of me feels as if I know him almost. From poems like ‘November’ to ‘Harmonium,’ I have read, enjoyed, shared and taught them for years. So now, I come across a new one for me. Thank you AQA. I will enjoy this section immensely as I take you all through this body of work.

Simon Armitage is one of those Yorkshire poets, like myself, who tends to say it as it is at times, sometimes romanticising his thoughts and at other times, adding harsh, bitter comments about person, life, attitudes, just life in general. His is a poetry for the disaffected, a poetry that can bring alive the negativity in us.

This poem is an example of that. Most of us, who are of a certain age, can remember the days of the Punk Rock movement in music around the world and this lad can remember the arrival on the scene of a certain John Lydon and his band, The Sex Pistols. It was a time of great political change, of anger and resentment, of the worker wanting a fair deal and not getting it, and into that mix came these angry young men from the UK to share their venom and their angst at what the government were doing at that time.

That is the history. But those who took part and became ‘Punk Rockers’ as they were known, or ‘Punks,’ carried on their love of the music and the lifestyle and as they got older, they are now in their 50s and older, with the scars and signs to show from it. A cultural phenomenon that was short lived, lasts to this day because of those who chose to live the Punk lifestyle. But now, they can tend to look a sad echo of their former self. Today, we do not see them any more and if we do we call them Goth or some other words. Some, like this man in this poem, are ridiculed.

Society has moved on and Armitage captures this so well.

He recalls a time when he was “driving home.” The reader naturally asks if this is Armitage speaking as himself, or as another person. The reader believes it is him; that is his usual style. His poems are personal and reflective. He uses a great made up, slang term in the word “shonky,” one which I have not heard before and I am from Yorkshire. It just goes to show how variant English can be. To me, it means dangerous, or dodgy, the sort of place you do not stop if you value your tyres and wheels on your car. There are a few like that in Yorkshire. He says that if you drive through this part of town, “three times out of ten” you will see someone he knows well by sight. You will see the town clown. Notice the use of the lower case letter; it is not a name he is using to signify someone who wears bright, garish greasepaint. No, this is a derogatory word meant as an insult. A ‘clown’ in this context is the village idiot!

He is described using a simile to show that he looks “like a basket of washing that got up and walked.” If you go to your laundry basket or container and look through the dirty clothes, you will see soiled clothes, dirty clothes, crumpled clothes, maybe even torn clothes. This, for the town clown, is his normal, everyday wear. Our first reaction would be to laugh if we saw this kind of man, but Armitage asks you as a reader not to do this, making you think about the times when you have seen someone odd; a vagrant, tramp, someone living on the streets and chuckled. There but by the Grace of God, Armitage is saying, go you. It could so easily be you he is seeing.

The use of the words “every pixel of that man’s skin” is, for me, quite a powerful image. Yes the man is a powerful image himself, with every pore of his skin covered in ink, but to merge the idea of a pixel in a picture with a pore on a man’s skin is indeed, a very good trick he is playing on our minds. And as Armitage looks on, he begins to wonder what he [the Punk] will look like in years to come, when he is an elderly gentleman, if indeed he lives that far and to be that old. It is a true fact that in thirty years, there will be more and more OAPs covered with tattoos because some in society have chosen to rebel and go overboard on use of ink, piercings and odd hair styles. The town Punk is no different. He is therefore, a sad caricature of what humanity is, or should be, in the eyes of most of the rest of society.

Armitage asks the reader to consider this face that gets hurled at people in all sorts of drunken directions and to consider that this is one life ruined, one life that has gone the way that man wants, but has led him to drink and to ruin. He says “remember the clown Punk, with his dyed brain” as if the amount of ink he has put onto his body has infected him somehow. He tells the reader, as well as the children he is addressing, that they should consider this face and all those like him and then “picture windscreen wipers and let it rain.”

That last part is a metaphor for something else, it is symbolic of a tearful reaction to something. When we “let it rain” we cry, so perhaps, this poet is saying instead of wincing or sneering, or even making fun of this man, perhaps what we should do is try to understand him and then, instead of him being the clown Punk, he can become someone with a name, someone loved, someone seen as precious to someone else. We do this at our peril sometimes, judging people because of the way that they look. Someone has very short hair and we think skinhead and avoid. If someone has dreadlocks in their hair, we think another set of things. Likewise for the Punk rocker. Yes there are some we would want to avoid, but to tar them all with the same feather [look that up – tarring and feathering] is a dangerous thing to do. Armitage is suggesting therefore that this part of us needs to stop. He [the Punk] is just another man on the street after all.

CHARACTER AND VOICE – ANTHOLOGY POETRY [AQA]

There are several poems in this section. My aim is, over the next few days and weeks, to do something for each one of them for you.

This is the list, provided by AQA, that you are required to study if your teacher picks it.

POEMS

‘The Clown Punk’ by Simon Armitage
‘Checking Out Me History’ by John Agard
‘Horse Whisperer’ by Andrew Forster
‘Medusa’ by Carol Ann Duffy
‘Singh Song!’ by Daljit Nagra
‘Brendon Gallacher’ by Jackie Kay
‘Give’ by Simon Armitage
‘Les Grands Seigneurs’ by Dorothy Molloy
‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley
‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning
‘The River God’ by Stevie Smith
‘The Hunchback in the Park’ by Dylan Thomas
‘The Ruined Maid’ by Thomas Hardy
‘Casehistory: Alison (head injury)’ by U. A. Fanthorpe
‘On a Portrait of a Deaf Man’ by John Betjeman

How many do you know or are aware of before you came to this page? In 17 years of teaching, I have only seen or taught three of them, so this should prove an interesting few weeks for me, as we go through them. Feel free to comment as we do.

RJ

“next to of course god america i 

E Cummings

next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ’tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

Analysis

First question; do you know the words to the American anthem? If you remember the tune as most do, then you try to sing the words and should begin with “Oh say can you see…..” and then sing the rest. Now re-read this poem.

When I first saw the title, I thought here we go again, just like the Stevie Smith; weird, odd little poem, sounding almost nonsensical if you tried to say it out loud as it comes off the page.

For example, the first line is a repetition of the title, in that the words are the same, but in context, they seem out of order in a normal sentence. Unless you are Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda, taking the mess out of Michael Palin’s character, they simply do not work. Next to of course America i? Even my MS Word package wants to put the capital A in the word America.

So is this meant as a nonsense poem akin to Jabberwocky? I think not.

Instead, this is what I think is happening in this poem. Yes, Cummings has the word order wrong but when I do that in my writing, I am doing it to make a point. The poet is saying that next to God, whatever concept you have of God, then comes the land of the free, as they call it. There is a sense of nationalistic pride that runs through this poem and it is the pride of the writer, who is being creative with the language spoken, on purpose and for effect. In other words, God comes first, then my sense of nation and national pride. There is that sense that the history of this poet’s ancestors is important as a part of life. It is a very American sentiment and one that the British tend not to have. The use of “land of the pilgrims” and “say can you see” link together in the first three lines to bring this about so effectively.

Then, the poet continues. There are “centuries” of history to look back to, using standard and non-standard English [if you do not know the difference you need to look them up. Google them and learn them]. And after all the glorification of the nation [sounds like a rap, glorification of the nation – never mind] we get two lines that really start to get to the point of why it is in the conflict section of the AQA anthology at all.

We see the words:

“why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead.”

It is interesting that there is a rhetorical question being asked here. In my copy taken from the internet, there is a hyphen [dash] between the two parts of the word “beautiful.” If I then try to join the two parts together the lines get all messy, so it is done on purpose. Again, this is someone playing with the language. Can you remember learning to ride a bicycle? You wobbled. You may have fallen, but then you got going and eventually, you learned to balance, cycle and all the rest properly.

Then, you had a go at being adventurous, if like me, and took the hands off the handlebars. “Look Mum, no hands.” It is the same with writing and using language. We learn the basics so we know it and then we can play with it. This is what is happening here, as with some of the other poems in the section as well. “Why talk of beauty?” the poet asks. What reason could there be? What is being said is that there can be nothing more beautiful or glorious than those who have fallen in battle, the ones the poet calls “these heroic happy dead.” In the poet’s words, they “rushed like lions [simile here] to the roaring slaughter” [metaphor used] and did not stop to think right or wrong, death or life.

Now at this point, if you have read all these conflict poem notes on this blog, you should be thinking “hang on, where have I heard that before?” The answer of course, would be Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade. What the poet is saying is that there is no way after such heroism that those who call themselves American will stop thinking and saying glorious things like this, for when can “the voice of liberty be mute [silent]?”

This is, in essence, a very clever, very patriotic poem about a nation’s pride in their armed services and the sacrifices made by them each day, but it is also a poet handling language in a very sophisticated manner. It is a poem that reflects conflict, heroism, sacrifice, death, glory and pride. But it is also one that is equally confusing for some, so for the rest of the notes I refer to a fellow site with extra notes below.

RJ

From another website

The poem “next to of course god america i” alludes to the patriotism of a nation, namely the United States. It brings up the issues of what’s a patriot and what in actually the norm of the average American citizen’s response is to war and fighting? The writings style displays sort of a mocking tone of the patriotism of the United States because while we all rally against a common foe it becomes the minimal population that’s doing all fighting. Through my interpretation I saw this work as a member of U.S. Congress who act as if they are the biggest patriot who ever lived in this country, although they can talk the talk they will surely not walk the walk of the paths of war. It’s a matter of who can spew the biggest patriotic speech and act as if they care when in fact they’ll be doing none of the fighting as in most times of our nation.

Furthermore to the poem the element of blind patriotism is as well evident. This element of blind patriotism is apparent in “…who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead…”(Cummings). Cummings’ deliberate direction towards close-minded ideals and questioning is the displayed sentiment seen here. We’re able to view individuals who against all common thought are prone to being manipulated and brought on the bandwagon to ship off to war without knowing what they’re fighting for. This delusion is exactly what it comes down to when one becomes a blind follower of a cause or nation that seeks help for the most ridiculous causes: war.

The last line of the poem is important in its own way because it brings into light the reality of dissent in the world of blind followers. The narrator speaks the truth in the text about the reality of who does the fighting and what becomes of the followers who are sent to fight in causes our own Congress does not seek to follow suit. As the narrator finished speaking we see they immediately take a drink of water and essentially swallow their own words when they realize what they just stated was against the ideal patriot’s mindset but something else: truth.

https://sites.google.com/site/theliteratureofpoetry/3

Okay, so your teacher is asking you to write an extended piece of writing. She asks you to stretch those sentences and use semi colons and colons wherever you can, to make your writing more structured and get you into the A-C grades.

You sit there in your classroom and most likely think one thing; what the hell is a semi colon?

Well, if you look at the second paragraph of this blog piece [the bit underlined on purpose for you], you will see an answer to that question. I typed 12 words ending with the word “thing.” At that point I could have added a full stop or a comma and carried on. The full stop of course, would have ended the sentence. Then I typed 7 more words, beginning with “what” and ending with “colon.” I added the question mark because that is what the last half of that sentence is all about. In other words, a semi colon is used for the extension of meaning in a sentence. The first part of the sentence is about you sitting there in a class room. The second is about you thinking what a semi colon is.

Does that make sense? The two halves of that sentence need to be related to each other! That is the simple rule to remember.

Then we get the colon. Now the Science geeks amongst you will say “ah, I know where the colon is. It is in your gut” and you would be right, for there is a colon in the stomach and intestinal area of the human body. However, there is a colon used when writing as well. But, what is it and why is it used?

Generally speaking, a colon is used where there is a list involved. For example, if you was to write about my favourite football team and say who played in a match, you would do so like this.

In the match against Sunderland, these were the City players who took part in the game: Hart, Zabaleta, Boyata, Demichelis, Clichy, Jesús Navas, Touré, Fernandinho, Jovetic, Milner, Nasri, Pozo, Agüero and Lampard.

In that example, you have the explanation of what the list will be [the players who took part]. Then you get the colon and then you get the list. Easy!

Now, as a way to remember which is which, I refer to 1974 or thereabouts and to the one and only Mr Smith, my Science teacher; Chemistry to be exact. He would every now and again dictate notes to us so we got everything written down and copied accurately. Sadly, he passed away whilst I was there and the way I remember him is that he looked like the bossy teacher in Dead Poet’s Society as well, but was a pussy cat at heart. Lovely man!

He used to be dictating and then he would come to a colon in the text and he would say, out loud, to us all, “then add a colon, for the ignorant, two dots, one above the other” and before too long, we of the more cheeky variety of student would say it out loud in a chant. God bless him, wherever he is, for 40 years on I still remember that chant.

So now you know the difference between the two. Use them wisely.

RJ

Come On, Come Back 

Stevie Smith 

(incident in a future war)

Left by the ebbing tide of battle
On the field of Austerlitz
The girl soldier Vaudevue sits
Her fingers tap the ground, she is alone
At midnight in the moonlight she is sitting alone on a round flat stone.

Graded by the Memel Conference first
Of all human exterminators
M L 5
Has left her just alive
Only her memory is dead for evermore.
She fears and cries, Ah me, why am I here?
Sitting alone on a round flat stone on a hummock there.

Rising, staggering, over the ground she goes
Over the seeming miles of rutted meadow
To the margin of a lake
The sand beneath her feet
Is cold and damp and firm to the waves’ beat.

Quickly – as a child, an idiot, as one without memory –
She strips her uniform off, strips, stands and lunges
Into the icy waters of the adorable lake.
On the surface of the water lies
A ribbon of white moonlight
The waters on either side of the moony track
Are black as her mind,
Her mind is as secret from her
As the water on which she swims,
As secret as profound as ominous.

Weeping bitterly for her ominous mind, her plight,
Up the river of white moonlight she swims
Until a treacherous undercurrent
Seizing her in an icy amorous embrace
Dives with her, swiftly severing
The waters which close above her head.

An enemy sentinel
Finding the abandoned clothes
Waits for the swimmer’s return
(‘Come on, come back’)
Waiting, whiling away the hour
Whittling a shepherd’s pipe from the hollow reeds.

In the chill light of dawn
Ring out the pipe’s wild notes
‘Come on, come back.’

Vaudevue
In the swift and subtle current’s close embrace
Sleeps on, stirs not, hears not the familiar tune
Favourite of all the troops of all the armies
Favourite of Vaudevue
For she had sung it too
Marching to Austerlitz,
‘Come on, come back’.

ANALYSIS

At first glance, there are two things that are rummaging through my brain; firstly that any teacher who dares to go near this is nuts and lastly, why on earth has AQA added something as complex, even if it is good, as this to the syllabus when there are F tier students out there who will struggle with most prose, let alone this? The next thought is one that this teacher must be mad to have a go at this one, but here I am, having a go, so if it ends up as gibberish, consider I am typing these words at midnight.

This is a poem written in third person from the point of view of the poet, or in this case, the story teller, who tells her story about a young girl. In parenthesis [use of brackets] the reader is told this could be in a future war, not in a past one, so we are immediately expecting something different, or at least this published poet is.

If we take this verse by verse we see in the first verse, or stanza, that the young girl in question is called Vaudevue, an intriguingly odd sounding name and one that reminds me of the word Vaudeville but clearly not meant to be the same meaning. This girl then, is sitting after the field of battle has ended or paused, and “her fingers tap the ground.” Immediately the reader should ask the question, why would someone do such a thing? Is this meant to be taken literally or metaphorically? If literally then very odd indeed. The place in question is the “field of Austerlitz” so this is of a foreign climate to the British reader’s thoughts, as well as those of you who are from the far corners of the globe. So we are left to assume it is meant to be metaphorical, or symbolic of something else.

We find that “she is alone at midnight in the moonlight,” itself a very alliterative section of the poem and one meant to reflect the almost moonlight, romance of the scene. She is “sitting alone on a round flat stone.” Again the reader has to ask the question here – why the round, flat stone? What symbolism does this carry, if any? What else was round in the past or in folklore? Is there a link to the idea of something old passing through the portals of one dimension to another?

The answers are not forthcoming for now until we get to the next verse which begins with the idea that she is a remnant of something that fought there. Strange words that sound futuristic emerge as we see she has been “graded by the Memel Conference” or classified as being of minor importance any more by the “human exterminators” called “M L 5,” who have “left her just alive” or barely alive. The strange wording of “only her memory is dead for evermore” sounds almost too futuristic in a sense because the memory of someone is something that will last forever. We remember the person of Napoleon Bonaparte, or King James I or Queen Elizabeth and Historians gather information on them, so their memory is never dead, but in this battle that has happened so there is the sense that all can die. The girl feels the raw emotion of warfare and battle as she “fears and cries, Ah me, why am I here?” If there is ever such a comment as this that would sublimely describe the raw emotion of the eternal question of why we go to war, it is this one, as she is “sitting alone on a round flat stone on a hummock.”

But she is not beaten. No, she is defiant to the last as she rises, “staggering, over the ground” and she begins to trudge the meadows of the battle to emerge at the outer most parts of a lake, travelling from carnage to tranquillity as she goes. Now there is sand in her shoes or toes and she feels the rise and swell of the beach, blessed relief from what she has just endured. Suddenly she is in the opposite of the brutality she has endured so far and is now somewhere where there is peace and beauty. She is now able to act “as a child, an idiot, as one without memory” as she wanders off into the lake and the waters that engulf. It is an extraordinary image being painted here of someone who can see the horrors of war and then wander off from the battlefield and find somewhere where peace resides and if metaphorically understood, reflects the idea that this is about passing from earth to heaven, or indeed, wherever the afterlife takes us.

She “strips her uniform off,” itself symbolic or dropping the last vantage of warfare. A soldier wears a uniform in battle, so this removal is symbolic of her desire to seek peace over war and here we begin to see the poet’s attitude to warfare and conflict in some detail as she lets her heroine do the sorts of things she would want to do in the same situation, diving into the “icy waters of the adorable lake.” The description that follows is simply mesmerizing in its beauty as she describes how “on the surface of the water lies a ribbon of white moonlight.” Here, there is romance. Here there is love. Here there is the chance to live again as we are intended to and just as much as baptism is a rite of passage in the worldwide church so too could this watery entrance be her rite of passage as she dies and enters the waters of the afterlife.

The waters are described as being “on either side of the moony track” and as “black as her mind,” which leads the reader into thinking that perhaps this is a poem about the entry into the after life after all [pardon the pun there]. She is in a situation where her mind and her body could be said to have separated from each other, which is symbolic of death. Everything therefore, is described in “ominous” terms.

Then there is a change in tone again and one towards the negative, where we see something change in her. We see words like “weeping bitterly” and “treacherous undercurrent” as she swims the lake in the direction of freedom and as she does so, the lake and the waters are “seizing her in an icy amorous embrace” showing just how far on this journey she is. She has laboured in death, travelled to beauty and now is guided by some magical force to somewhere where there is peace but in order to do so, she has to let “the waters … close above her head.” Such words are again metaphorical in content and meant to make the reader think in terms of our journey from life through death and into whatever comes next. For this poet, this is her beautiful journey that she hopes will be hers when her day comes.

And just as she is on her journey of discovery, something happens to change the direction for the reader again. A guard finds her clothes and waits for her to return either thinking or saying those words “come on, come back!” When you think about it, why would you say those words? In what context might you say them? You might say them if someone is leaving and you do not want them to, or when someone is dying and you desperately want them to stay with you. The latter works better here, as with the earlier sentiments because of the words that follow describing the “chill light of dawn.” Everything is cold. Everything is dead or dying. So is Vaudevue as she passes from one plane to another, as the “close embrace” slowly ebbs away from her and she fails to hear the tune she knows so well, the tune that was sung in the battlefields before this day, the song that was called ‘Come on, come back.’

The Falling Leaves

Today, as I rode by,
I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree
In a still afternoon,
When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky,
But thickly, silently,
They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon;
And wandered slowly thence
For thinking of a gallant multitude
Which now all withering lay,
Slain by no wind of age or pestilence,
But in their beauty strewed
Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.

Margaret Postgate Cole

Analysis

Margaret Cole (nee Postgate) was a pacifist in the First World War and an active supporter of the Second World War. She was a lifelong socialist and active in education reform in England. It is in knowing this information that the reader can formulate what this poem is trying to do and why the poet write the thing in the first place. Being a pacifist in WW1 and mentioning the “Flemish clay,” we are led to believe that this was meant perhaps, as a form of protest at the total futility of war, like many of Wilfred Owen’s poems were; from the front but saying why did we go to a Flemish field and waste so much blood? It is also possible to suggest that her later poetry may have been totally different from this because of her stance change.

So, we get to the poem itself. Count the lines and we see twelve lines of poetry, so unlike the beautiful poems that are usually two lines longer [sonnets] and usually have a regular rhythm and symmetry to them, this one alters and changes the length of lines to suit her need to say something short and specific, for dramatic emphasis. For example, she begins with “Today, as I rode by,” signifying that this is from the point of view of an officer, or at least someone who had the privilege and luxury of being on horseback. Normal soldiers were foot soldiers, who marched for miles, trudging through the Flanders mud. So this person who is speaking is from the privileged classes. It is a nice, to the point, short line, followed by a longer one for emphasis.

The next line then follows with “I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree” which immediately makes a reader who knows something of symbolism and metaphor think about the leaves themselves and how they can be seen to represent or symbolize the soldiers themselves, falling in the mud at the onslaught of the German guns. Indeed, one could argue it from the other side and the Germans seeing the British falling before their onslaught. Either way, the loss of human life that we ‘remember’ each November is evident from the beginning in this poem. Then she follows with the fact that it is a “still afternoon” when this is taking place. Stillness reflects calm normally, but in the terror of warfare, stillness can be equally terrifying, so we are led to believe that terror and conflict exists here in the stillness of the day, “when no wind” exists in a situation that brings forth the men “whistling to the sky,” in their adventure.

Now notice the word “But” on the next line. Words like this usually signify a change. Something is good, but it will change. Someone is poor, but they win the lottery. Here, the reader expects a change and gets one with “But thickly, silently.” These are words that are so strong and so powerful in their usage and meaning. The event that follows happens heavily and quietly, like a dream before the soldier’s eyes as his comrades fall “like snowflakes wiping out the noon.” Now, we see sadness and despair coming into the poem whereas the previous sense of bravery and honour is passing.

Then the reader is led along a path of misery with words that suggest a slow movement from this soldier as he sees so much death and decay all around him. He wanders “slowly” through the ranks, “thinking of a gallant multitude” who have gone before him into battle and who are now lying dead in his tracks. It is a simmering sight of sacrifice he sees, where “all withering lay,” rotting and smelling of death. He makes note that they are “slain by no wind of age or pestilence,” meaning that it was not sickness of the body that killed them or old age and decay, but rather the inhumanity of one nation to another just because of a desire to have more land. Now the reader sees the true poet/pacifist of the First World War coming out in her writing, shouting from the roof tops her belief about how wrong this all is and how we are wrong to send our men [and now women] off to war. To her, it is all a needless waste.

Then we get a repetition of the word “But” again and this time, the change has to go the other way. Instead of being a horrible sight, the soldier [or more likely, the poet] sees the men not as horrid and unsightly, but “in their beauty strewed like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.” Snowflakes are beautiful to behold. Snowflakes falling is something beautiful to see. To match the two images together like this is stunning to say the least, but it also shows how someone can use the English language to describe something so that her horror of war as well as her belief that it is indeed right and good to die for your country to great effect. This is a poem therefore, that reflects a depth of emotion and the use of symbolic metaphor to show a belief system that still exists to this day.

Bayonet Charge

Suddenly he awoke and was running – raw
In raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy,
Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge
That dazzled with rifle fire, hearing
Bullets smacking the belly out of the air –
He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm;
The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye
Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest, –

In bewilderment then he almost stopped –
In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations
Was he the hand pointing that second? He was running
Like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs
Listening between his footfalls for the reason
Of his still running, and his foot hung like
Statuary in mid-stride. Then the shot-slashed furrows

Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame
And crawled in a threshing circle, its mouth wide
Open silent, its eyes standing out.
He plunged past with his bayonet toward the green hedge,
King, honour, human dignity, etcetera
Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm
To get out of that blue crackling air
His terror’s touchy dynamite.

TED HUGHES

Analysis

Depending on how you read this poem, it will either be an easy poem to understand and analyse, or a hard one. From the title we get the impression before we read that this is going to be about a man in uniform charging the enemy and is going to share some of his raw emotion at doing so; that is what we expect from simply reading the title.

But we also find that it is one of those poems that is like the good old fashioned onion, in that it has many layers. Its surface meaning reflects the terror and the awe at which this man runs forward, thinking noble and brave thoughts of country and bravery as he does so.

On a deeper level, there is more to be unpicked. This is a man charging with bayonet fixed, a moment of sheer bravado and guts from anyone and to this reader, who has been trained in such things, it is reminiscent of Army training, running at the “green hedge” that could be meant to reflect the enemy or the place you are trying to take.

Beginning with the word “Suddenly” is for me, an interesting beginning. It is like the writer is wanting you to read this at a rush at the beginning, that the necessity to launch into the reading of this poem is subliminally given to the reader. As this is then followed by “he awoke and was running,” the reader is led on a charge of their very own, enabling the reader to share something of this man’s task at hand. It is a “raw” task completed by someone “in raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy,” as it comes down his brow as he makes that desperate run forward. This is an act of desperation.

As the charge continues, itself similar in tone to that of Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade, we see a man armed with a rifle, “stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge” that is alive with “rifle fire,” but it is what the soldier is “hearing” that makes the tone more desperate than ever, for he can hear “bullets smacking the belly out of the air.” That single word, “smacking” is a word denoting violence or a violent act. It is one associated with someone inflicting pain and harm on another. It is therefore, an emotionally violent part of this poem.

But then the tone changes again as the soldier “[lugs] a rifle numb as a smashed arm” up to that hedge. The use of the simile here is helpful to the reader as it enables us to see just what a weight a rifle actually would be. When I did my Basic Training in 1977, we were given something that fired 7.62 rounds [left picture] and it was no lightweight piece of kit. Now, the army are given the SA80 [right picture], among others, a much lighter beast to haul anywhere. As this poem is undoubtedly set in former times, when the SLR was prominent, one can only imagine the extra weight trudged up that hill to the hedge in question.

The poem then uses words to bolster pride in the reader because we see that “patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye” as he progresses and we see the sweat, “like molten iron from the centre of his chest” as he runs. Up to this point this is a poem about bravery, a brave man taking part in something equally heroic. It is reminiscent of Colonel H in the Falklands Conflict and of so many before him and since.

But then, we see in the second stanza a different feeling and set of emotions. The soldier now feels a sense of “bewilderment” as he nearly stops and begins to think things through, thinking “in what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations” is he pointing at that very moment. Soldiers are taught not to think of the fear or what might happen when moving forward. They are taught to obey an order, do what they have to do and then when it is all over there is time for thinking to be done. But this soldier is now taking time to think, as he is running. In one sense this could be seen as the normal thing to do. In another, not so. But what is evident in this second stanza is that we now see a man who is able to think logically for himself. The use of the metaphor in “cold clockwork,” as well as being alliterative, allows us to see past the soldier and to the man.

It is as though he has started to run and then stopped for a split second in flight as if to say what am I doing here? This could indicate an opinion in the mind of the poet, who equally thinks that all war and therefore all battles like this, are futile. The conflict of war therefore, is one that is being discussed here as Hughes asks us to consider just what we mean by words like “brave” and “noble.”

All of this then progresses into the third stanza, where we see the man seeing something very odd happening. He sees a “yellow hare” but one is left to consider whether this in itself, is a metaphor for something else. Is it a real animal emerging from the ground he is running and being startled, or does he consider the soldier, or even the reader, in this thinking state, to be that yellow, cowardly hare who begins the run and then thinks about it half way through?

As the reader continues the image of the real hare emerges more colourfully as it is now described as crawling “in a threshing circle, its mouth wide open silent, its eyes standing out.” Clearly, the actions of the man in the poem have disturbed something in the animal kingdom and it is this action by the man that has a similar reality in the human world also. Conflict and warfare are things that bring damage and decay and perhaps, Hughes is trying to make the reader think about how they view warfare and the impact it has on the animal world, the world of agriculture and the creation that we share.

Then we see the man as he proceeds “past with his bayonet” on his journey “toward the green hedge,” thinking once again of the reason he is there, the reason he among all others, has to undertake this charge. In Tennyson’s poem, the soldiers learn the idiom of “ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die,” but here, we see a man who is able to reason more clearly his actions before he does them and as he is doing them. He thinks of “King,” of things like “honour” and “human dignity,” allowing us to see a more modern view on world conflict. His only desire is to “get out of that blue crackling air,” the air whistling with bullets coming the other way, what he calls “his terror’s touchy dynamite.”

That last line is magnificent in its colour and depth. We can inflict terror on each other with dynamite, but to call his situation, or even his actions, “touchy dynamite” is something rather special, almost beautiful if not for the fact that he is speaking about someone with the intent to kill, or at least, maim someone else. The way he uses alliteration, not just here, but also in other parts of the poem, allows us to see a writer playing with the English language to make for a better picture in the mind of the reader.