“Let me loose to wonder…through the wild blue yonder.”
In contrast, he describes his own opinion on leaving Batman.
“As you liked to say, or ditched me, rather, in the gutter.”
Robin feels betrayed so he reveals Batman’s secrets.
“Let the cat out on that caper with the married woman.”
This destroyed Robin’s illusion of Batman being a hero.
Armitage uses onomatopoeia.
“Holy robin-redbreast-nest-egg-shocker! Holy roll-me-over-in-the-clover.”
This is similar to the newspaper headlines in the Batman series.
Robin doesn’t want to be Batman’s sidekick anymore and he has matured. The poet explains this by using a metaphor which compares Batman and Robin’s relationship to a game.
“I’m not playing ball boy any longer…I’ve doffed that green and scarlet number.”
“Now I’m taller, harder, stronger, older.”
Robin hopes that Batman grows old alone and regretting what he has done.
“Batman, it makes a marvellous picture: you without a shadow stewing over chicken giblets in the pressure cooker…punching the palm of your hand all winter.”
The poet uses a metaphor to compare Robin to a ‘shadow’ because he was inferior to Batman.
At the end of the poem Robin calls himself ‘The real boy wonder’. This and his desire for revenge suggest that he hasn’t really grown up.
The poem has one stanza of 24 lines. The lines are pentameters. The long sentences and the repetition of words ending in -er at the end of each make the poem seem fast-paced. Some words within the lines also end in –er or –our like ‘gutter’, ‘rumour’ and ‘elder’. The poem also comments on the theme of family. It shows the deterioration of a companionship when Robin denies that he and Batman were close.
“Now I’ve scotched that ‘he was like a father to me’ rumour, sacked it, blown the cover on that ‘he was like an elder brother’ story.”
I think that this poem shows Simon Armitage using humour to illustrate how a hero’s (a celebrity or an admired family member) status can be diminished.
