“I am very bothered” is also a sonnet, but the similarities end there. It is not in iambic pentameter and does not have a specific structure to the verses.
In “Poem” we get the idea that the main character, Father, husband and Son, has done few bad things in his life. These things stand out more than the everyday good deeds he did for his family, “taxied her to church”, “tucked his daughter up at night”. This makes the poem seem judgemental. The last verse is written in the past tense, making the poem seem slightly morbid,
“Here's how they rated him when they looked back:
sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that. ”
This makes it seem like the man in the poem is dead and the poem is being recited at his funeral.
In “I am very bothered” Armitage uses iconic love poem language to set the mood for a love poem, “naked lilac flame”,
“O the unrivalled”. After thinking it will end nicely he uses language to make the boy seem slightly psychopathic, “O the unrivalled stench of branded skin”. The introduction “I am very bothered about the bad things I have done” makes him seem insincere about his apology, as it appears weak.
In both poems the language and imagery used makes us imagine what the characters feel and what they think about the other characters.
In “Poem” the reason the bad things he does sticks in our minds is because of the agression suggested by the verbs used, “slippered”, “punched”, “lifted (ten quid)” are all verbs that are a lot more physical and violent compared to “taxied”, “tossed”, “saved”, “praised” which are the verbs used to describe the good things the man does.
In “I am very bothered” the language used is very much like a love poem from Shakespearian times. At first it leads us to believe the motive of burning the girl is hatred but the use of “O the unrivalled” gives the effect that it is a love poem. There are also other signs of this. For example, “two burning rings” could symbolise the real rings used in marriages and “for eternity” is suggesting that the marks are everlasting, just like the bond of marriage.
Another sign the boy is in love with the girl is the way he describes the bunsen’s flame. “Naked lilac flame” makes it seem romantic when you could describe it as just an orange flame.
In conclusion, Simon Armitage makes his characters come to life by using a verity of poetic techniques that relate to what the themes of the poems are. He creates images in our heads of the situations they are in and describes their feelings to tell us what they are thinking.
Liam Queally 9 Thorne
