Harmonium, by Simon Armitage

HARMONIUM

by Simon Armitage

The Farrand Chapelette is a type of harmonium or small organ. Simon Armitage and his father before him were choir boys at the church of Saint Bartholomew in Marsden, a village in West Yorkshire. On occasions when the congregation at a service was quite small, the organist would play the harmonium instead of the full-size organ.

The harmonium eventually fell out of use, and in the opening lines of his poem “Harmonium” Armitage states that it was “gathering dust / in the shadowy porch.” It would have been thrown in a skip had Armitage not wanted it. In the final line of the first stanza he comments that he could have it “for a song”, an idiom that means very cheaply. There is an obvious play on words here, as the harmonium is of course used to play song tunes.

The second stanza of “Harmonium” is twice as long as the first and describes the musical instrument in detail. The first half of this stanza focuses on the effect sunlight has had in the church. The windows show images of saints and of Jesus Christ rising from the dead; Armitage says that the sun can “beatify” the saints, in other words raise them above the level of ordinary people. He contrasts the fact that the sunlight shining through the stained glass windows has a positive effect whereas it has weathered or “aged” the wooden case of the instrument. Armitage uses the metaphor “fingernails” in describing the way the sun has discoloured the harmonium's keys; the area that the organist would have pressed with his fingers is now yellow. One of the harmonium's notes or keys has “lost its tongue;” the personification to convey the fact that the key is silent brings life to the image.

The last three lines of the second stanza focus on how worn the treadles of the harmonium are. These are like pedals that the organist has to continually push down with his feet as he plays the music. There are actually holes in both of them now. Armitage even describes how the organist used to wear “grey, woollen socks / and leather-soled shoes,” conjuring up a rather dull picture. He uses a half rhyme, with “treadles” at the end of line ten and “pedalled” at the end of line twelve; this is the only instance of rhyme in the stanza.

The third stanza is a shorter one, consisting of five lines. Armitage uses alliteration twice in the opening line, “But its hummed harmonics still struck a chord.” This is a vivid description emphasising the fact that although the harmonium is very old and worn, it means something to the poet. The idiom “to strike a chord” means that something triggers a memory, but of course this is another play on words, since chords can be played on a harmonium. Armitage tells us that the instrument was used for a hundred years and stood “by the choristers' stalls.” He mentions that “father and son” had both sung there; this could refer to himself and his father, although he does not specifically say so. In the closing line of the third stanza, Armitage reverses a simile to describe the singing of the choir boys. He says that “gilded finches” “streamed out” of their throats, using metaphors, and says that the finches were “like high notes,” which is in fact what they were. This imagery is rather complicated but nevertheless conveys the image beautifully.

The fourth and final stanza is the poem's longest one. It concerns Armitage's father, although the poet does not actually say so; the only actual use of the word “father” is in the third stanza. Armitage describes the way his father came to help him “cart” the harmonium away. The description is not a flattering one, and it echoes the description of the aged musical instrument. The poet's father came in a “blue cloud of tobacco smog, / with smoker's fingers and dottled thumbs.” We can't help but be reminded of the harmonium's yellowing keys and weathered wooden case. The two men carry the instrument “flat, laid on its back,” personifying it. This leads to Armitage's father making a remark that the poet says “he, being him, can't help but say.” The father tells his son that the next box he will carry down the nave of the church will be the father's coffin. The word “coffin” is not actually used, but the father says the box “will bear the freight of his own dead weight.” In other words, it will contain his dead body; the phrase “dead weight” is used literally here, but it can also mean a particularly heavy weight or even an oppressive burden.

The last three lines concentrate on Armitage's emotional response to his father's remark. He begins “And I, being me,” echoing the phrase “And he, being him” that came three lines earlier. Armitage says that his reply was “some shallow or sorry phrase or word” that he mouthed. The lack of precision conveys the idea that he couldn't think of the right or suitable answer to such a poignant remark. The poem closes with the line “too starved of breath to make itself heard.” Armitage was so out of breath from carrying the harmonium that he could not speak loudly enough, and perhaps he didn't want his answer to be heard as he felt that it was inadequate. The last two lines rhyme, and these are the only two consecutive lines in the poem that rhyme with each other.

“Harmonium” is a touching poem that initially appears to be about Armitage's attachment to this musical instrument that, although old and almost worn out, was a part of his childhood. The final stanza, however, introduces his father, and Armitage is clearly affected emotionally by his father's comment on the fact that the poet will soon be carrying his coffin into the church. Armitage's use of imagery, plays on words and sparing use of rhyme create a convincing piece of poetry. He shows that objects that are old and no longer used still have value and the memories they trigger are meaningful. More than that, he links the theme of the harmonium with his feelings towards his aging father, whose death draws ever nearer; confronting this idea, the poet is so emotional that he cannot express himself as he would wish.

Originally published on helium.com

The Laboratory, by Robert Browning

The subtitle to Robert Browning's poem “The Laboratory”, “Ancien Regime”, tells us that it is set in France before the revolution, when the old regime of the monarchy was still in place. The poem is a dramatic monologue. The narrator appears to be a woman, a fact which is not apparent in the opening stanza, but becomes so as the poem develops.

In the first stanza, the narrator addresses another person using the terms 'thou' and 'thy', which are the old-fashioned familiar forms of 'you' and 'your'. She is putting on a mask and watching the person in the laboratory through a haze of smoke: 'thro' these faint smokes curling whitely'. The narrator refers to the laboratory as 'this devil's-smithy', which is the first sign that something sinister is going on. The final line of this stanza leaves us in no doubt of this, as the woman asks, 'Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?' The repetition of 'poison' emphasises its importance.

The opening phrase of the second stanza, 'He is with her,' suggests that the narrator has asked for poison to be concocted because she is jealous. It would seem that her lover has deserted her for another woman. She says that they think she is crying and has gone to pray in 'the drear / Empty church'. The couple, meanwhile, are making fun of her, stressed by the repetition of 'laugh' in line 7. The stanza closes with the brief phrase 'I am here', emphasising the setting of the laboratory which is in such sharp contrast to the church.

The phrase 'Grind away' at the start of the third stanza shows the woman's eagerness for the chemist to make the poison. Browning brings the description alive by using alliteration in the phrases 'moisten and mash' and 'Pound at thy powder'. The narrator is not in a hurry and says she would rather watch the concocting of the poison than be dancing at the King's court.

In the fourth stanza the narrator comments on the ingredients of the poison. The chemist is mixing it with a pestle and mortar, and the woman describes the gum from a tree as 'gold oozings', giving the impression that it is both beautiful and valuable. She then looks at a blue liquid in a 'soft phial', finding the colour 'exquisite'. She imagines that it will taste sweet because of its beautiful appearance and is surprised that it is a poison.

Stanza five begins with the narrator wishing she possessed all the ingredients, which she refers to as 'treasures'. Browning uses personification to describe them as 'a wild crowd', and the woman considers them as 'pleasures', a sinister attitude to poisonous substances. The use of the adjective 'invisible' means that just a tiny amount would be required. The narrator delights in the thought of being able to carry 'pure death' in any one of a list of small accessories, such as an earring or a fan-mount.

In the sixth stanza the narrator turns her thoughts to how easy it will be at court to give 'a mere lozenge', like a sweet, that will kill a woman in just half an hour. She names two women in this stanza, Pauline and Elise, and it is not clear if one of them is the current target of her jealousy and desire to murder. She delights at the thought of Elise dying, and Browning uses enjambment to create the list 'her head / And her breast and her arms and her hands', perhaps because she is jealous of Elise's beauty.

The seventh stanza opens with the sudden exclamation 'Quick!' and the narrator is now excited as the poison is ready. She then reveals her disappointment, however, as its colour is 'grim', unlike the blue liquid in the phial. She hoped that it would make her intended victim's drink look so appetising that she would be encouraged to drink it. In the eighth stanza she is concerned about how tiny the amount of poison is: 'What a drop!' She says that the other woman is considerably bigger than her, and thinks that she 'ensnared' or caught the man in her trap because of her size. The narrator is not convinced that the drop of poison will be fatal: 'this never will free / The soul from those masculine eyes'. It will not be enough to stop the victim's pulse, which the narrator describes as 'magnificent'.

In the ninth stanza the narrator recounts, in lines using enjambment, how she had gazed at the other woman the previous evening when her ex-lover was with whispering to her. She had hoped that by staring at her she 'would fall shrivelled'. This obviously did not happen, but the narrator knows that the poison will do its work. Stanza ten has slightly shorter lines than the others, and the narrator addresses the chemist directly. She knows that the poison will act quickly, but she does not want her victim to have an easy death: 'Not that I bid you spare her the pain'. Browning uses alliteration in a cluster of three to describe how the narrator wants the other woman to suffer the effects of the poison, in the phrase 'Brand, burn up, bite'. The stanza ends with the narrator commenting that her ex-lover will always have the memory of the pain on the dying woman's face, and she appears to relish this thought.

The narrator asks the chemist if the poison is ready at the start of the eleventh stanza. She asks him to remove her mask and not to be 'morose', or gloomy. The poison will be lethal for her victim, and she does not want the mask to stop her having a good look at it. She describes it with the alliterative phrase 'a delicate droplet', and alliteration appears again as she comments 'my whole fortune's fee!' meaning that it has cost her everything she owns. In the closing line of the stanza, she wonders if she herself can be harmed by the poison, considering the effect it will have on her victim.

The twelfth and final stanza begins with the narrator once again showing how much the poison is costing her. She tells the chemist 'Now take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill', and the alliteration in the phrase 'gorge gold' adds emphasis. She shows her gratitude by telling the chemist, whom she addresses as 'old man', that he may kiss her on her lips if he would like to. She asks him, however, to 'brush this dust off' her, referring to traces of poison, as she is afraid it will harm her too: 'lest horror it brings'. The poem ends as she proclaims that she will 'dance at the King's!' a triumphant announcement. Whether or not her victim dies from ingesting the poison, we do not know, but she shows no remorse and is obviously determined to go through with her murderous plan.

Browning has used an anapaestic metre in “The Laboratory”, in other words two stressed syllables followed by one unstressed one. This gives the lines of poetry an upbeat, fast-paced rhythm that convey the woman's excitement at the idea of poisoning her victim. Browning has created a character who is totally ruthless and eaten up by jealousy, determined to carry out an act of revenge that will prove fatal to another woman.

In his book “Revise the English and English Literature Anthology,” Tony Childs states that the narrator of “The Laboratory” is based on an imaginary incident in the life of Marie Madeleine Marguerite D'Aubray Brinvilliers (1630-76). In reality, she killed her father and two brothers by poisoning them and also planned to poison her husband. Although her victims were all male, Browning has adapted the character into a dangerously jealous woman targeting her ex-lover's new female interests. His portrait of her is utterly convincing.

Patrolling Barnegat - Walt Whitman

'Patrolling Barnegat' is a poem that explores nature in all its fury, during a storm at sea. Whitman begins with the repetition of 'wild', leaving us in no doubt as to the mood of the poem. The focus is immediately made clear by the words 'storm' and 'sea'. The personification in the second line, 'roar of the gale', describes the ferocity of the wind, but there is also an 'incessant undertone muttering' – a more subtle sound that never lets up. Sound is again emphasised in the third line with 'Shouts of demoniac laughter'; this is no happy sound, but one associated with evil that is 'piercing' the air every so often.

The cluster of three – 'Waves, air, midnight' – at the start of line four add to the atmosphere, as we now know that this is occurring in the darkest hour. These three are referred to as the 'savagest trinity', a most dangerous combination. Line five tells us that the 'milk-white combs', the crests of the waves, can be distinguished among the shadows, and they are 'careering,' giving a sense of wild, uncontrolled movement. In line six Whitman uses alliteration to create an image of snow falling on the shore: 'On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting'; the repetition of the s gives an impression of the sound of melting snow hitting the ground.

Line seven reminds us of the darkness with 'murk' and the severity of the gale in the phrase 'easterly death-wind' – lives may in fact be in danger. The final word of this line, 'breasting', signals the presence of the coastguards confronting the wind. In line eight they are moving forward, 'watchful and firm' through the 'cutting swirl and spray' of the wind, snow and waves. Line nine is a snatch of conversation in parentheses, as an object is spotted in the distance that may be the wreck of a ship. Someone asks if the red light is flashing, as conditions make this difficult to ascertain.

In line ten the 'slush and sand' of line six are reiterated, and the coastguards are described as 'tireless' as they trudge along until daybreak. Line eleven tells is that they make their way through the storm 'steadily' and 'slowly', and once again the sound is described as a 'hoarse roar', rough and fierce. It is relentless, 'never remitting', echoing the 'incessant ... muttering' of the second line. Line twelve emphasises again that it is midnight, and echoes the alliterative 'milk-white combs careering' of line five.

In line thirteen a direct reference is finally made to the coastguards who are the subject of the poem. They are seen as 'a group of dim, weird forms', a description that again underlines the darkness and difficult conditions which make it impossible to see clearly. They are 'struggling, the night confronting', emphasising just how hard it is for them to move along the shore during a storm and in darkness. The final line of the poem refers again to the 'savage trinity' of line four, in other words the waves, the air and the night. The patrollers are watching all of these 'warily', vigilant, knowing that disaster may strike at any moment.

Were it not for the snatches of conversation in line nine, the poem would consist of one long sentence, creating the impression of the constant wildness of the storm, unceasing. Even in line nine, the exclamation mark and the first question mark are not followed by capital letters, as though separate sentences were not intended. There is no real rhyme scheme, but each line ends with an -ing form, emphasising the movement as the waves lash on the shore and the wind blows mercilessly.

Walt Whitman has painted a picture of nature at its harshest and shown how those who patrolled Barnegat Bay in New Jersey braved such adverse conditions, ever watchful for those in danger at sea.

Cold Knap Lake - Gillian Clarke

Gillian Clarke's poem 'Cold Knap Lake' centres around a childhood memory of a girl almost drowning in a lake in Glamorgan (South Wales). The poet, with her parents, 'watched a crowd' of people pull the girl out of the water. It seemed at first that they were too late: the girl's lips were blue and she 'lay for dead'. The metaphor 'dressed in water's long green silk' tells us that she was covered in weeds from the lake.

In the second stanza, Clarke describes her mother as a 'heroine' as she knelt down to resuscitate the girl. The act of kneeling, 'her red head bowed', perhaps suggests a religious act. The mother seems to have been part of the whole rescue operation, 'her wartime cotton frock soaked'. The mention of her red hair is in sharp contrast to the girl's blue lips and gives a feeling of life. Clarke was obviously struck by the idea of her mother reviving 'a stranger's child' with 'her breath'. The crowd of onlookers dare not speak but are compelled to watch, as Clarke tells us in the alliterative phrase 'drawn by the dread of it'.

The third stanza tells us that the girl began breathing; 'bleating' suggests the idea of a baby animal calling for its mother. She is now 'rosy in my mother's hands', the color assuring that she is alive. The poet's father took the girl back to her home; we are told that she came from a poor family. Rather than expressing gratitude for the fact that she survived, her parents 'thrashed' her for having got herself into such danger.

The question 'Was I there?' that opens the fourth stanza signals a change in the poem. It stands out, as it is the shortest line in the entire poem and comes at the beginning of a stanza. It suggests that the poet, now of course an adult, is unsure as to whether she actually saw the girl being beaten or whether this is something her father told her about. The following five lines of the stanza form one long question that centres around an extended metaphor where the waters of the lake represent the memory. This second question refers to the 'troubled surface' of both the mind and the water. The imagery here is rich, from the alliteration of 'surface something else/shadowy' continuing with the personification of the 'dipped fingers of willows', which links back to the fingers of the child in the water. The 'satiny mud blooms' of line 18 are reminiscent of 'water's long green silk' in the first stanza. The 'cloudiness' of the muddy water is a symbol of the haziness of our memories. The assonance in the phrase 'treading heavy webs' in the following line creates a vivid image where it is the webbed feet of swans that are disturbing the water, just as certain events provoke unclear thoughts about the past in our minds. The stanza and the extended question close with the evocative sounds of the swans' wings that 'beat and whistle'.

The poem ends with a pair of rhyming couplets:

'All lost things lie under closing water

in that lake with the poor man's daughter.'

'Lost things' suggests memories that we can no longer recall, buried deep in our minds. The final line connects back to the initial focus of the poem, the girl who almost drowned. Alliteration of 'All lost things lie ... in that lake' serves to tie together the ideas of the memory and the drowning incident. 'Water' and 'daughter' are in fact the only rhyming words that appear in successive lines in the entire poem. In the first stanza, we could consider 'lake' and 'silk' (lines 3 and 4) as a half rhyme. Stanza two has 'earth' at the end of the opening line and 'breath' at the end of the fourth line, another half rhyme. The third stanza's first line ends with 'bleating' and its last line with 'drowning'. The fourth stanza does have two rhyming words, 'there' and 'air', one at the end of its first line and the other at the end of its last line, and each is the final word in a question.

The pattern of the stanzas is an interesting one, as the first and third stanzas have four lines each and the second and fourth six lines each, with the rhyming couplets standing out at the end of the poem. The lines vary in length, with the shortest one, 'Was I there?', drawing attention at the start of the fourth stanza.

In 'Cold Knap Lake', Gillian Clarke has created a fascinating poem that seems to focus on one particular dramatic event she witnessed in her childhood but develops into an expression of how our memories of the past are a part of us that may fade or play tricks on us with the passage of time.

Anne Hathaway - Carol Ann Duffy

n her poem entitled 'Anne Hathaway', Carol Ann Duffy adopts the persona of Shakespeare's widow. The introductory quote from Shakespeare's will 'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed' reminds us that Shakespeare's best bed was reserved for guests, and that Anne inherited the one that she and her husband slept in. This bed becomes the focus of the fourteen-line poem.

In the opening two lines, Duffy uses a metaphor to express the magic of the bed in which Shakespeare made love to Anne: it was 'a spinning world / of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas'. More metaphors follow in lines three and four as Anne Hathaway recalls their lovemaking; she expresses the notion that Shakespeare would 'dive for pearls', and she describes the sweet words he said to her as 'shooting stars' that landed on her lips when he kissed her.

From line five to line ten Duffy uses imagery in a fascinating way that relates directly to the fact that Shakespeare was a writer. Anne sees her body as 'a softer rhyme to his ... now assonance', assonance being a figure of speech in which the same vowel sound is repeated. Then follows the charming personification of his touch, portrayed as 'a verb dancing in the centre of a noun', giving a feeling of grace and delicacy. Anne says that she sometimes dreamed that Shakespeare had 'written' her, wishing that she herself were part of his artistic creation. She metaphorically imagines the bed as 'a page beneath his writer's hands'. She sees their lovemaking as drama enacted through 'touch', 'scent' and 'taste'.

In lines eleven and twelve a contrast is created to the early magic of the poem in the description of how the guests, in the best bed, 'dozed on, / dribbling their prose'; no poetic lovemaking for them! But line twelve then switches to Anne's alliterative description of Shakespeare as 'My living laughing love'. She tells us in line thirteen how she treasures her memories of him with the metaphor 'I hold him in .the casket of my widow's head'. The final line compares this act to the way in which Shakespeare held Anne so lovingly in that second-best bed. The last two lines are a rhyming couplet, just as the last two lines of a Shakesperian sonnet would be, ending the poem with a sense of unity.

Duffy's 'Anne Hathaway' is a poem full of rich imagery, the tale of a woman who remembers her husband in a wonderful, loving way with no hint of sorrow. It is beautiful to read and to dwell on the magical pictures that are painted within it.

Death of a Naturalist - Seamus Heaney

Heaney's poem 'Death of a Naturalist' focuses on his experience of collecting and watching frogspawn as a child, and his reaction when the spawn turned into frogs.

In the first ten lines of the poem Heaney uses vivid imagery to describe the setting and its sights, smell and sounds. The phrase 'flax-dam festered' in the opening line combines assonance and alliteration, and begins to create the atmosphere of decay. 'Heavy headed' at the end of the second line again uses assonance and alliteration in one phrase to describe the flax that had rotted. The heaviness is emphasised further in the third line, where the flax is 'weighted down by huge sods'. The idea that hot weather has caused the decay is expressed in line four: 'Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun', a personification of the oppressiveness of the sun. A gentler image focusing on sound is created in 'Bubbles gargled delicately' in line five. The movement of flies is described with a metaphor: 'bluebottles / wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell', a fascinating image combining different senses. Line seven hints at the beauty of the scene with its 'dragonflies, spotted butterflies'.

In line eight Heaney makes the first mention of frogspawn with the metaphor 'warm thick slobber', which as a child was 'best of all' to him among the offerings of nature. In line nine he uses the simile 'grew like clotted water' to describe his impression of it. The poem then switches to an account of how Heaney collected frog spawn every spring, filling 'jampotfuls of the jellied / specks', imagery that again combines alliteration and assonance. The jars were arranged both at home and at school, then carefully observed as the specks turned into 'nimble-/swimming tadpoles' – another example of assonance.

Lines fifteen to twenty-one (the end of the first stanza) are a very childlike account of how the schoolteacher, Miss Walls, taught Heaney's class about frogs and frogspawn. Simple, childish language features in this section, such as 'the mammy frog laid hundreds of little eggs'; there are four clauses each joined by 'and' in this sentence, just as though it were written by a child. The final sentence of the first stanza continues in the same style, telling us that frogs are yellow in sunny weather but 'brown / In rain'. The last, brief two-word line of the first stanza seems to underline the fact that this is the end of a period of innocence and that a change is forthcoming.

The second stanza of twelve lines is much shorter than the first and has a very different tone; the feeling of change is signalled by the opening phrase 'Then one hot day'... Unpleasant imagery begins with fields described as 'rank / with cowdung'. At the end of line two and the beginning of line three the frogs are seen as 'angry' and have 'invaded the flax-dam': they have taken over in a war-like gesture. As Heaney approached he heard a 'coarse croaking' that was a new sound in that setting; in line twenty-six he uses the metaphor 'The air was thick with a bass chorus' to describe how the sound filled the place. Frogs are everywhere and they are ugly, 'gross-bellied', pictured with assonance in the phrase 'cocked / on sods'. Their flabby necks are described by Heaney with the simile 'pulsed like sails'. The sound of their movements is expressed by onomatopoeia: 'slap and plop', which obviously disgusted Heaney who felt that these were 'obscene threats'. In line thirty their stance is described by the simile 'Poised like mud grenades', an image that echoes the war-like connotation of the word 'invaded' in line twenty-four. Heaney again voices his distaste for the sound of the frogs in the phrase 'their blunt heads farting'. He could not face them, and in line thirty-one he 'sickened, turned and ran', such was his revulsion. He personifies them as 'great slime kings' and in the following line states that they had assembled at the flax-dam for revenge: 'gathered there for vengeance' for stolen frogspawn. Heaney's final line expresses how far his imagination as a child took hold: 'if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it'. This is a nightmare image where the spawn becomes powerful and grabs the child, reversing the original roles.

The structure of the poem, where the first stanza is almost twice the length of the first, resembles that of Heaney's 'Blackberry-Picking'. Both poems describe an enjoyable childhood experience in the first stanza which turns sour in the second, linking form to meaning. The feeling of disillusion and disappointment following pleasure is a common theme in these two poems. 'Death of a Naturalist' links language to meaning as well, the vivid imagery of the second stanza creating a marked contrast with the simple, childlike wording of lines fifteen to twenty-one. There is a wealth of description here and we can sympathise with the child's disgust of the creatures that evolved from his precious jars of frogspawn.

Hitcher

The first stanza of Simon Armitage's poem 'Hitcher' reveals that the narrator has been off work for a while and is under threat of losing his job. He states that he had been 'tired, under/the weather', not seriously ill. He doesn't answer the phone calls from work, so messages are left, and he describes the ansaphone as 'screaming' that he will be fired if he produces another sick note. This is someone who seems unable to face the routine of everyday life. He himself hitches a lift to the place where he has a hired car parked, but gives us no information as to the purpose of his journey or his destination.

The first line of stanza two abruptly introduces the hitcher: 'I picked him up in Leeds'; the hitcher is only ever refered to as 'him' or 'he'. We are told that he is travelling from east to west, 'following the sun', and the only possession he has with him is a toothbrush. He sleeps in the open, on 'the good earth'. He tells the narrator that the truth is 'blowin' in the wind', an obvious quote from a Bob Dylan song of the 1960s. The narrator's comment that the truth could perhaps be 'round the next bend' is an ominous precursor to what follows, but we may not realise this on first read.

The fact that stanza three describes the narrator's sudden violent attack on the hitcher reveals the envy that he felt when confronted by a person who appeared to have total freedom. 'I let him have it' is a blunt description of the physical attack during which the narrator hit the hitcher initially with his own head and then 'six times with the krooklok', directly in his face. Ruthlessness is all too apparent when he tells us that he carried on driving, 'didn't even swerve' during the attack.

Armitage uses enjambment to link the third stanza to the fourth, as the narrator describes how he pushed the hitcher out of the car whilst in third gear and watched him 'bouncing off the kerb'. The statement 'We were the same age, give or take a week' tells us that the narrator obviously made a direct comparison between himself and the hitcher. The hitcher 'said he liked the breeze/to run its fingers/through his hair': the personification brings to life this description that must have aroused such envy in the narrator at the hitcher's freedom that he began his frenzied attack. We are now into the fifth and final stanza, and the narrator's cold-heartedness is once again emphasised in his matter-of-fact tone as he listens to the car radio: 'It was twelve noon./The outlook for the day was moderate to fair.' This is a man who may have just killed someone.

The last two lines begin with another blunt, abrupt sentence: 'Stitch that.' The irony of the last line, 'you can walk from there', is all too clear, as the hitcher would have been in no state to walk having been brutally attacked and forced out of a moving vehicle.

The structure of the poem is in fact very balanced, consisting of five stanzas of five lines each. The lines vary in length but follow the same pattern in each stanza, beginning with a short one, increasing in length until the third line, and gradually decreasing in the fourth and fifth. The only rhymes in the poem are lines three and five in the first stanza ('fired' and 'hired'), and lines three and five in the final stanza ('fair' and 'there').

This is a first-person narrative reflecting different extremes in society: two men of the same age, one of whom has succeeded in escaping the rat-race, the other caught up in it but unable to face up to its demands and threatened with losing his job. Confronted by someone who has found the freedom he so covets, the narrator cannot bear listen to him or see him sitting beside him. Envy, pent-up anger and violence are unleashed. One man may be dead; the other is unrepentent, devoid of emotion.

Figures of Speech in Poetry

Anyone studying English Language and Literature has to be able to analyse poetry, and recognising figures of speech and being able to quote them and comment on them will make any essay more impressive. There again, actually using them yourself in creative writing or descriptive writing brings your work alive and gives it an extra dimension. Various figures of speech are explained here; the examples quoted are from the AQA Anthology for GCSE English Language and Literature (Specification A) for 2005 onwards. (The book is published by Oxford University Press but is only distributed in secondary schools; copies can sometimes be found on Ebay.)

ALLITERATION

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Alliteration is the repetition of consonants, usually at the beginnings of words in close succession.

Nissim Ezekiel uses this device in his poem 'Night of the Scorpion' in which the phrases 'stung by a scorpion' 'parting with his poison' describe his memory of the evening his mother was the victim of a scorpion's sting but thanked God it had chosen her and not her children. The 'drizzle of one despondent dawn' sets a dismal tone at the beginning of Nigerian poet Chinua Achebe's 'Vultures'.

Moniza Alvi uses alliteration in her poem 'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan' which expresses her confusion at being of mixed nationality and not fully belonging anywhere. After moving to England, she hears of the conflict in Pakistan, which she describes as 'a fractured land/throbbing through newsprint'.

In her poem 'Anne Hathaway', Carol Ann Duffy imagines how Shakespeare's wife would have thought of him as 'My living laughing love'. Simon Armitage picks a more up-to-date character in 'Kid', where the narrator, Batman's sidekick Robin, has finally grown up and says Batman has 'let me loose to wander/leeward, freely'.

A very different atmosphere is created by alliteration in Walt Whitman's poem 'Patrolling Barnegat' describing a storm at sea: 'On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting'. Still threatening, but in a very different way, is Robert Browning's female narrator in 'The Laboratory', describing in minute detail the process as she mixes a poisonous potion to inflict upon her lover's new-found mistress: 'moisten and mash up thy paste,/Pound at thy powder'. A more majestic picture is created by Alfred Tennyson in his brief poem 'The Eagle': 'He clasps the crag with crooked hands;/Close to the sun in lonely lands'.

ASSONANCE

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This is the repetition of vowel sounds in words.

Seamus Heaney shows himself to be a grand master of assonance in his poem 'Death of a Naturalist' where he describes how 'gross-bellied frogs were cocked on sods'. The more poignant 'Mid-Term Break' tells how he was brought home from boarding school following the death of his four-year-old brother in a road accident. Waiting for neighbours to collect him from school, he hears 'bells knelling'; on the morning of the funeral he sees the body 'stanched and bandaged' and notices the bruise on the left temple.

In a similar vein, Gillian Clarke's 'Cold Knap Lake' recounts how a drowning child is pulled from the lake. She describes the murky depths of the water 'after the treading, heavy webs of swans' that she feels may hide other disturbing memories.

On a lighter note, John Clare's 'Sonnet' describes the delights of nature in summer 'Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood': notice that here he is also using alliteration and a simile, so be on the lookout for descriptions that combine more than one figure of speech.

CONTRAST

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Contrast is the juxtaposition of opposites to create a striking effect.

Tatamkhulu Afrika's poem 'Nothing's Changed' deals with the idea that South Africa remained as it was even after black people were accorded the same rights as white people. He shows this by describing an 'up-market, haute cuisine' 'whites only inn' where he presses his nose up against the window to see 'crushed ice white glass,/linen falls,/the single rose' inside. In contrast, the black Africans have to go to a cheap 'working man's cafe' that 'sells/bunny chows..... eat/it at a plastic table's top'. He describes how the workers here instinctively wipe their fingers on their jeans, then 'spit a little on the floor'.

But is the USA very different? Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 'Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes' is set in San Francisco. Stuck in a traffic jam at a red light, he focuses on the juxtaposition of a garbage truck and its two occupants and a Mercedes in which are seated an architect and a 'young blond woman': 'two garbagemen in red plastic blazers..... looking down into/an elegant open Mercedes/with an elegant couple in it'. In the closing stanza Ferlinghetti imagines that anything could have happened in that short space of time that brought these people so close together: 'and the very red light for an instant/holding all four close together/as if anything at all were possible/between them'.

METAPHOR

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A metaphor compares something to something else by saying it IS something else or DOES something else, as in the line from the song 'I've got you under my skin': you cannot literally be under someone else's skin. The English cricketer Fred Truman once famously said 'I don't use metaphors. I don't like to beat about the bush,' which of course is itself a metaphor.

Simon Armitage's poem that begins 'Mother, any distance greater than a single span' recounts how his mother came to help him measure up a house he was moving into, but the entire poem appears to be a metaphor for his changing relationship with his mother as he grows up and becomes independent. She stays downstairs, firmly grasping the 'zero-end' of the spool of tape, while he climbs the stairs with the tape, 'unreeling years between us', seeing his mother as an 'anchor' and himself as a 'kite', gaining his freedom but not breaking the bond.

The poem 'Search for my Tongue' by Sujata Bhatt also uses an extended metaphor (over the course of several lines of the poem) to express the idea that her mother tongue insists on making its presence felt, and seems to grow like a plant: 'the bud opens, ..... it blossoms out of my mouth.'

'Catrin' by Gillian Clarke expresses the desire of both mother and child to establish their separate identities. At the time of birth, the umbilical cord is described by the metaphor 'the tight/red rope of love' that mother and baby are fighting over.

In 'Anne Hathaway' Carol Ann Duffy imagines that Shakespeare's wife felt that the nights she spent with her husband took her to a world of fantasy: 'My lover's words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses to these lips' skilfully combines both metaphor and simile in one image.

In a far less magical vein, Charles Tichbourne wrote 'Tichbourne's Elegy' in the Tower of London in 1586 before his execution. He was still young at the time, and the poem contains a number of metaphors expressing his regret that he will not be able to live out the course of his life:

'My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green;

...My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun.'

ONOMATOPOEIA

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Although a long word and a difficult one to spell, it can often be something as short as: pop! Onomatopoeia means using a word that actually sounds like the sound it is describing.

Several of Seamus Heaney's poems portray his admiration for his father and grandfather, who both farmed the land. Remembering his grandfather cutting turf in the poem 'Digging', Heaney decribes the sound as 'the squelch and slap of soggy peat'.

Gillian Clarke's 'Baby-sitting' is an honest expression of the lack of a bond between herself and the baby she is looking after. She describes the sounds of the sleeping infant as 'a snuffly/roseate, bubbling sleep;' and we can just imagine the little sounds she is hearing.

In 'We Remember Your Childhood Well', Carol Ann Duffy constructs' a scene where adults are answering what are apparently the accusations of their child, now grown up. 'Call back the sound of their voices. Boom. Boom. Boom.'

OXYMORON

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Not as common as some other figures or speech, an oxymoron puts two complete opposites together in the same phrase.

Carol Ann Duffy's poem 'Havisham' centres on the elderly Miss Havisham of Charles Dickens's novel 'Great Expectations'. Jilted on her wedding day, she was never able to forgive or forget the gentleman in question. The opening line of Duffy's poem refers to him as her 'Beloved sweetheart bastard'. Towards the end of the poem the oxymoron 'Love's/hate behind a white veil' shows the close link between the two extreme emotions.

PERSONIFICATION

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Personification involves giving things the characteristics of people.

Seamus Heaney's 'Death of a Naturalist' is one of the most descriptive poems in the anthology; he sets the scene at a dam where 'Bubbles gargled delicately' and the flax rotted under 'the punishing sun'.

John Agard's poem 'Half-Caste' written in non-standard English, uses vivid imagery to express his frustration at the attitude people have towards him because of his mixed nationality. He uses personification to describe the persistance of heavy clouds in Britain: 'some o dem cloud..... so spiteful dem dont want de sun pass ah rass'. (Some of those clouds are so spiteful they don't want the sun to pass over us.)

In a celebration of freedom from the routine of daily life, kitchen utensils as well as vegetables are personified in 'This Room' by Imtiaz Dharker: 'Pots and pans... clang/past the crowd of garlic, onions, spices,/fly by the ceiling fan.'

Simon Armitage's poem 'Hitcher' describes the violent reaction of an anti-social driver who picks up a hitch-hiker that seems to have the freedom he fiercely covets. After attacking him and throwing him out of his car, the narrator remembers how the hitcher 'said he liked the breeze/to run its fingers/through his hair.'

SIMILE

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A simile is a way of comparing one thing to another using either 'like' or 'as'.

'The flung spray..... spits like a tame cat/Turned savage' describes the ferocity of the wind lashing at the sea in Seamus Heaney's 'Storm on the Island'. The same poet deals with childhood memories in 'Blackberry Picking' where he remembers the taste of the season's first blackberyy: 'its flesh was sweet like thickened wine'.

A more majestic picture of nature is given in Alfred Tennyson's 'The Eagle'; the bird of prey stands on a mountain top and then suddenly 'like a thunderbolt he falls', swooping down on the prey he has been watching. John Clare shows his admiration of nature in summer in his 'Sonnet': 'reed clumps rustle like wind shook wood', where he combines alliteration and assonance with his simile.

'The skin cracks like a pod' describes the effect of drought in an Indian village in the poem 'Blessing' by Imtiaz Dharker, whereupon a pipe bursts and adults and children alike come running to collect the precious water.

'A salwar kameez..... glistening like an orange split open' describes the brilliant colour of the traditional Pakistani clothes sent to her in England in Moniza Alvi's 'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan'.

'Labourers swarm..... like crows attacking crow-black fields' focuses on the crowds of field-workers in Seamus Heaney's 'At a Potato Digging'. In contrast 'but God, ever nigh,/Appeared like his father in white' to rescue a child whose father had left him behind whilst walking home in the dark in 'The Little boy Found' by William Blake.

In 'Sonnet 130' William Shakespeare uses a simile in the opposite way when he says 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;' and yet he values her love above everything.

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The work of these poets is of course published in other collections besides the GCSE Anthology mentioned in my introduction. Faber & Faber Ltd publish the work of Seamus Heaney and that of Simon Armitage, whilst Carol Ann Duffy's poetry is published by Macmillan. Gillian Clarke is published by Carcanet Press Ltd.

Analysing poetry obviously involves more than just discussing figures of speech; style, structure, rhythm, and rhyme are all important. Being able to recognise figures of speech will, however, help in understanding the imagery and meaning of a poem and encourage students perhaps to use figurative language in their own writing.

Not My Business

Hailing from Nigeria, Niyi Osundare finds an outlet in his poem 'Not my Business' to express his views of the actions taken by repressive regimes such as the one that exists in his own country.

The first three stanzas of this four-stanza poem are identical in structure. The first four lines of each describe how acquaintances of the narrator disappeared in either brutal or mysterious circumstances. In the first stanza, Akanni is beaten and pushed inside a jeep; Osundare uses personification to create this image, describing how the victim was 'stuffed ... down the belly' of the jeep. The final three lines of this stanza, which are completely identical to those of the following two stanzas, convey the reaction of the narrator to this sudden, shocking event. Using the metaphor 'So long they don't take the yam / From my savouring mouth?' he considers that it is none of his business. As long as it doesn't affect him directly, why should he care?

The second stanza recounts how 'they' took Danladi away 'to a lengthy absence'. He was taken during the night: not just taken, but dragged out in an episode that woke everyone in the house. Osundare uses the word 'booted' to convey the aggression here. Stanza three is somewhat less violent but equally chilling, showing that women were not spared from similar treatment. Chinwe was sacked from her job without any explanation or warning. The second and third stanzas are concluded in the same way as the first: the narrator is still adamant that he doesn't have to bother about such events, as long as 'they' leave him alone.

The fourth and final stanza, however, is in stark contrast to the first three. The narrator is sitting down to eat his yam when a knock comes on the door. He describes his reaction in no uncertain terms: 'A knock on the door froze my hungry hand.' The jeep is waiting for him this time, and he again uses personification to project his feelings onto his lawn, describing it as 'bewildered'. The ominous tone of the final line describing the jeep 'Waiting, waiting in its usual silence' is perhaps even more chilling than the contrasting account of the brutality of the events of the first two stanzas.

The fact the Osundare uses first names to recount what happened to Akanni, Danladi and Chinwe shows that these were either members of his family, housemates or close friends. It is striking that the events took place at different times of day: morning in the first stanza, night in the second, no specified time but presumably morning in the third, and evening in the fourth. This makes us feel that these people would always have to be on the alert and could be arrested or lose their job at any moment. Yet, seeing what happened to those close to him and knowing that it could happen at any time, the narrator did not initially seem to think that he was in any danger. The irony of course is in the title, 'Not my Business', since the jeep eventually came for the narrator himself.

Osundare here conveys the idea that people can disappear or lose their jobs for no apparent reason in places such as Nigeria. He expresses his concern that people may not care that this is happening, as long as they can carry on with their own lives as normal. Yet it can happen to anyone. Observers of such a situation need to care about such injustice and take action to prevent oppression.