Compare the two poets Ted Hughes and Simon Armitage.

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                09/05/2007

Compare the two poets Ted Hughes and Simon Armitage

In the untitled poem by Simon Armitage, the poem describes to us a short story that happened many years ago. The story is of a 13-year-old boy during puberty, and not knowing how to deal with his feelings for a girl in his class. The boy heated up scissors in a flame in a chemistry lab and then handed them to the girl marking rings around her fingers. We presume that the boy in the story is the poet, Simon Armitage as the poem is written in 1st person.

The poet now feels a little sorry for what he did but tries to excuse it using the sentence, ‘…that was just my butterfingered way, at 13 of asking you to marry me.’ In this quote he tries to use his age as an excuse as he was only young. The poet telling the story does not actually say that he is sorry but we get that impression from the quote, ‘Don’t believe me, please, if I say...’ when the poet was 13 though we get a different opinion of what he was feeling, we get the impression that he felt amused, proud and triumphant of what he had done, but know looking back does not feel the same as he did.

I believe that the overall message of the poem is to ask the girl that he burnt at 13 to marry him; he tries to excuse what he did and then goes on to say; ‘Don’t believe me please, if I say, that was just my butterfingered way, at 13 of asking you to marry me.’ I believe that this is the overall message of the poem as it is written as a sonnet, which is usually associated with love. The layout of the poem is not the traditional layout of a sonnet, which to me represents an irregular love.

In the untitled poem written by Simon Armitage, there are three stanzas the first has seven lines, the second has four lines, and the third has three lines. All the lines in the poem are very short, their lengths varying from four lines to ten. The first stanza is divided into two parts; the first two lines are of Simon Armitage looking back as an adult and the nest five what he actually did to the girl. The second stanza (third section) is describing the outcome of what he did. And the last stanza (fourth section) is talking as an adult, directly to the girl that he injured. The poem begins with the sentence; ‘I am very bothered when I think of the bad things I have done in my life.’ This gives the feeling that now as an adult the poet feels remorse for what he has done. Not only to the girl in his class, when he was younger but other things too. The poem also ends with him informing the girl that all he wanted was to ask her to marry him. In the middle of the poem the writer has been very descriptive, describing to us in great detail the results of what he did. It is in my opinion that the second stanza stands out more than anything else as its description is very powerful. ‘O the unrivalled stench of branded skin as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in, then couldn’t shake of those two burning rings. Marked, the doctor said, for eternity.’ To me this stanza stands out more than any other because of the words ‘branded’ and ‘eternity’. By using the word ‘branded’ it makes us think that the boy in the story has made the girl his by marking her with a burn like farmers do to their cattle as a way of knowing whose is whose. By using the word ‘eternity’ we know that the girl in the poem will carry the ringed marks around her fingers for the rest of her life and will always be reminded of the boy. Also, the fact that the poem doesn’t have a title makes it stand out too. The fact that it doesn’t have a title makes the poem more unusual and odd.

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The only imagery that the poet has used in the untitled poem is a burnt mark around the girl’s fingers as a metaphor for a wedding ring and the boy ‘playing’ the scissor handles in to a flame. To me this is a simile for an instrument. The boy is playing the scissors into the flame like a violin’s bow, but this could also be to suggest the poet is just a child playing with a toy.

The poet has used little sound patters. For example he has only used rhyme twice. ‘O the unrivalled stench of branded skin, as ...

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