by melaniewp | May 7, 2013 | Exam Essays, GCSE, Model Essays, OCR, Poetry, Simon Armitage, To Poverty
Basic SummaryThis poem is spoken by the poet (perhaps) to ‘poverty’, as if poverty is a person. He seems to have a mixed relationship with it. They go back a long way. The poet speaks in a controlling way at the end, where he commands poverty to come close...
by melaniewp | May 7, 2013 | Exam Essays, GCSE, Poetry, Simon Armitage
Basic AnalysisThis is a poem about murder. A man is telling us about an incident when someone, possibly a relative or friend, came to stay unexpectedly. The man who comes to stay, who is never named, is having a mental breakdown. Then he starts to annoy his host (the...
by melaniewp | Mar 19, 2013 | Exam Essays, GCSE, IGCSE, Model Essays, OCR, Poetry, Simon Armitage
Brief Summary (scroll down for a top grade analysis)This poem is in the third person, summing up a man’s life from the outside. There is very little emotive language, it’s all clean and without judgement. It reads like a list of the man’s qualities,...
by melaniewp | Mar 19, 2013 | Exam Essays, GCSE, IGCSE, Model Essays, Poetry, Simon Armitage
Basic Meaning: a man talks bitterly to his ex-girlfriend, how it’s no big deal she left. He paints a vivid picture of how he thinks she must see him: like a ‘Kodiak bear’, or a ‘prince’ in an ice palace. This icy image echoes his...
by melaniewp | Mar 14, 2013 | Exam Essays, GCSE, Model Essays, Poetry, Simon Armitage
SummaryIn this poem, Armitage explores an incident when he had his ear pierced as a teenager, and his father’s shocked reaction to it. This poem is about coming of age, asserting your own identity, and seems to show he has a bad relationship with his father....
