Please watch the video link below and develop your thinking about the poem in a discussion with each other. We will begin next week's lesson reflecting on your thoughts. Please support your points with language from the poem.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p011t1dd
from the video I saw that what we discussed in the lesson was quite accurate, accept the people who thought it was about the baby. The first two lines are the big giveaway of who's perspective the poem is written from. It's quite interesting how rather than the solders view on his past Armitage chose the wife.
ReplyDeleteJenny
In class when we only saw the words from the poem, my main thoughts were an adventure gone wrong, permanent damage, an accident and searching for someone. After watching the clip, it seems like I wasn't too far off as Armitage describes these points he included in the poem. Firstly he spoke about a seriously wounded soldier where the bullet ricocheted through his body ("frozen river that ran through his face"), this left him permanently damaged; physically and mentally. The poem is written from the soldier's wife's point of view as she attempts to 'defuse' the "mine" (find her real husband again) as the war seriously changed him, so it seems like she doesn't recognize who he is anymore. Also Armitage described the use of "foetus" as he wanted to surprise the reader and show the moment of shock when the bullet is located the soldier's chest. Finally Armitage uses various military language and imagery ("parachute", "unexploded mine") to help to further suggest the idea and consequences of war. Overall I think that this poem is very emotional as it is telling the story of a wounded soldier returning home to his loved one as a different person from when he left. Also there is a lot of powerful imagery describing the injured body parts which help you to understand the possible severity of a soldier's wounds.
ReplyDeleteRachel
In the lesson I thought this might have been written by someone who had been a soldier and had wounds or was writing from the front line. I would never have guessed it was written in the point of view of a women because the words seemed quite masculine and that it is what I found quite interesting about the poem.
ReplyDeleteI also found it very clever that every line of the poem was a metaphor or simile.
Millie
'and feel the hurt' I think that this quote, from quite far into the poem, is very important mainly because I feel that this is the moment when the female speaker is realising the amount of pain that the man has gone through in the war. He is broken and she must help to try and fix him. I think that there is a ticking time bomb in his head and she must try to diffuse it otherwise he wont be the man she loves, he is broken and she has to try and piece him back together 'unexploded mine deep inside his mind' shows that the trauma from his past is going to stay there until it is diffused of until it is detonated, the second option because the worser for the man and the woman who loves him. 'and feel the hurt' I think that this quote, from quite far into the poem, is very important mainly because I feel that this is the moment when the female speaker is realising the amount of pain that the man has gone through in the war. He is broken and she must help to try and fix him. I think that there is a ticking time bomb in his head and she must try to diffuse it otherwise he wont be the man she loves, he is broken and she has to try and piece him back together 'unexploded mine deep inside his mind' shows that the trauma from his past is going to stay there until it is diffused of until it is detonated, the second option because the worser for the man and the woman who loves him.
ReplyDeleteThe first time we read the poem, I was fixated on the idea that it was about two soldiers in war and one soldier is trying to get another soldier to talk and stop hurting inside from all the killings and pain they see everyday. I let go of that idea once I found out it was about a wife and focused on the word 'foetus' mainly because I find it so weird but it fits so well into what Simon's point is trying to bring across. The fact this man has something new in him that he has not experienced to be there before, perhaps something he does not want, or something that he considers just a memory. However perhaps this memory is what is stopping him from talking to his wife the way he wish he could.
ReplyDeleteI find the title quite a good pun because it says 'Manhunt' as if to say the wife is trying to find the real man she married behind this mask of pain that he has not over come, and this has obviously affected her a lot. That after all those nights and days they shared and all their memories that they had were destroyed by this memory that a bullet gave on one fateful day.
-Nadia
When first reading the poem I fixated on the word 'foetus'. I couldn't understand why this particular word was among so many others which were a whole different subject and meaning. I couldn't help but think the poem was about abortion, after watching the clip and Simon Armitage explained his reasons for using the word 'foetus' I understood where he was coming from and my mind moved on from the topic of abortion. Overall I think the poem is clever and an interesting take on what happened to the man whose bullet ricocheted around his body. The title of the poem 'Manhunt' is an interesting name for the events of which the poem was about. I did not expect the poem to be written from the wife's point of view so it was a pleasant surprise when this was revealed in class.
ReplyDeleteKatie
When I first read 'The Manhunt' I immediately thought that the poem could be about a woman going through an unwanted pregnancy, and dealing with the conflicts of whether to have an abortion or to keep the baby. I thought this because of the words 'foetus' and 'war'. These two words seem to contradict each other, which made me question my thoughts slightly, however I still thought that this poem was about a woman perspective of pregnancy. I thought that the whole poem was representational of a young woman's view on pregnancy, and dealing with her struggles and reflecting on her memories of pregnancy as being a war or battle. Although I thought this about the collapsed poem, when we read the poem in class I did start to think that my thoughts were slightly off track. I started thinking about the words used to fill the poem, I felt that they represented care and affection. This contradicted my idea of a battle and conflict. I found that the way Simon Armitage had written his poem, in the perspective of a woman writing to her husband, was quite strange. This strangeness made a whole conversation in class, everyone was questioning his technique and looking at the poem more deeply. Now I think that Simon Armitage has written this poem in such a way, to create discussion and make people think about the poem instead of reading it blankly.
ReplyDelete-Georgie-
When we first saw thew muddle of words on the board, taken from the poem, 'foetus' stuck out the most because all of the other words were war words, words that spoke of pain and suffering. We all immediately concluded this to mean something of an abortion because that's what it sounded like. I thought this was true and I think that if the words could have been rearranged to make a poem then and there, it would have made sense as a poem of abortion.
ReplyDeleteOnce I watched the video and read the poem properly, what we said after that in class seemed to make a lot of sense and we got it right after that. I think that it was very interesting of Armitage to write the poem from the wives point of view rather than that of the husband and the initial sufferer. He wrote it well from the perspective of a woman and it seemed as though she was searching for the source of his pain, and as Armitage says, finding that bomb to defuse that is clearly his mind.
~Izzy
When I saw the poem in class for the first time, I thought about a war, so then my immediate response was that the poem must be from a soldier's point of view. But the word foetus didn't seem to fit in with all of the other words yet when I watched the clip, it sort of does match up in the poem. I think that Armitage is very clever in the way that he has constructed his poem. There is a slight weirdness to the poem because it is written from a wife's perspective but with such masculine and strong words. I also like the fact that the poem is written with each line being either a metaphor or simile to get across the heartache and pain suffered by, not just the soldiers but their, families, too. In this, I want to say that writing the poem from a woman's perspective, using such words as he has, almost make the poem not sound quite right because we don't think of a woman as being so knowledgeable about warfare but from the poem, the communication of hurt suffered by the husband is clearly reflected in how the woman described it in the form of the poem. I, personally, thought that it was a bit weird, how a character with such gentle personality could be comfortably using such masculine words to understand pain but now, I think that this may have just been a very smart technique of actually bringing about some discussion, through questioning the poem. I feel that this is brilliant for us because it really makes us focus on the little parts of the poem with detail for interpretation as opposed to just reading straight through the poem and not trying to understand it. The poem also talks about how the soldier has something new in him that is unexperienced and it's something he doesn't want/need in his life to aggravate his PTSD. However, the biggest challenge for me was to begin to question whether or not, it was this memory or having changed that is, now, stopping him from talking to his wife the way he could before going out on the front line.
ReplyDeleteI find the title quite open to interpretation because I though of the poem as being, before, from a soldier's point of view and that he is trying to 'hunt' out the opposing armed forces. He is in the midst of hunting down another man before offering him death. Still, when, I though about the fact that the title is actually much more open to interpretation than I first thought, I began to look on the blog and found a different POV from Nadia which almost contradicts mine which is why, I guess, I like it so much:
"I find the title quite a good pun because it says 'Manhunt' as if to say the wife is trying to find the real man she married behind this mask of pain that he has not over come, and this has obviously affected her a lot. That after all those nights and days they shared and all their memories that they had were destroyed by this memory that a bullet gave on one fateful day."
-Baw
[(Part I) AGAIN]
ReplyDeleteI love this poem. Though, it sort of reminds me of Nettles... Dunno why. Anyway!
Firstly, the opening lines seem to be describing a very tender, personal, even intimate moment.
The only thing that stands out is the use of the phrase 'after the first phase'. Now, looking JUST at the first lines, that could've been something as simple as a date, or a kiss. But it leaves you with the feeling like what comes AFTER the first phase has taken quite a long time in arriving, which is highlighted by the multiple repetitions of the words 'only then'.
So, the 'first phase'. I'd assume that now that the first phase is over, they move onto the second. It might be ironing out the creases in their relationship, or going back to the affection and intimacy that was absent in the 'first phase'.
Yet, looking at the title, The Manhunt, it seems very strong - almost aggressive - and way too a bit too crude for the delicate, finely written poem that follows. The title contrast and contradict the sweet words of the first few lines. So, the 'Manhunt', sounds, at least to me, quite ominous and threatening. Like police chasing somebody, or an actual hunt (bears, birds, foxes, etc.). But the opening lines contradict that with images of love, and passion. So, could the speaker be the metaphorical 'hunter' and their lover the 'man'? It seems like the only reasonable explanation for the title, since it also sounds quite desperate, and the relationship between the speaker and the wounded - which we discussed in class - appears to be quite strained. So, in my opinion, the speaker is searching for that lost part of her lover, which had been changed by the war, and the injuries he sustained. Basically, she is hunting (searching) for the man she used to know. That's just my opinion, though.
(Can I just say, this whole 'character limit' thingy is VERY annoying! Grr!)
[(Part II) Don't kill me!]
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the use of figurative language further in the poem, 'frozen river which ran through his face', 'blown hinge of his lower jaw', 'the damaged, porcelain collarbone' diverts your attention from his actual injuries and allows you to focus on a deeper meaning. In this poem, there isn't really a 'deeper meaning' but more of the fact that the speaker makes little stories about the injuries, to take the reader's mind off the distress and shock they undoubtedly feel after having discovered the extent of the injuries. These little stories, though, DO have a meaning of their own: the 'frozen river of his face' - though it is rather vague, and ambiguous, could be interpreted in various ways, apart from just the 'literal' - mainly: does she mean the literal scar which runs through his face, or the fact that his face used to be full of emotion, and joy, and now it's frozen in shock, or pain? Many soldiers who survived the war are often described as 'frozen' by the trauma they experienced.
All these metaphors only serve to dehumanise the man - when I read it, I cannot focus on him, but only on his injuries: to me, they are his defining feature. And these injuries aren't at all pretty.
So, after the first few lines, I have the image of a man made up almost completely of injury, which is neither an attractive image, nor one that seems easy to fix.
But then, there's the almost Beauty and the Beast-like deja-vu, (or The Hunchback of Notre Dame; whichever floats your boat) and it's like the author completely destroys that image. Instead of making it the man's defining feature, it becomes something that allows us to see woman's journey, as she helps the man heal, both physically - understanding all his injuries - and emotionally - the 'unexploded mine deep inside his mind'. That is one cool metaphor. And saying that 'every nerve is coiled around' said mine, it just sounds like a bomb - one wrong move, and BOOM! you're dead. (Which is why I personally think the poem is just sooooo cute and shows a lot of love and dedication, as the woman willingly tries to help her boyfriend/lover/husband/imaginary friend/ heal, even though she appears to be aware of the 'what ifs'. Though that's just me.)
Anyway! In class, we talked about the 'military-ish vocabulary used'; 'parachute silk', 'fractured rudder'. Personally, that is the only part of the poem I don't like. It's just so... simplistic and cliche. Blegh.
Finally! The last line, which has been bugging me immensely: 'Then, and only then, did I come close.'
Evil. Why leave it like that?
So, I'm going to assume that she means that after tracing all of her lover's injuries, she finally comes close to understanding him. Whether it's understanding his pain, his situation, or his apparent stoicism, I can only guess, but I would stick to saying that at the very end of the poem, she has finally began to understand him and maybe the emotional distance that had been between them (I would assume based on the beginning of the poem) had been reduced. But that's just my inner optimist.
It might be something compleeeeeeeetely different.
Thoughts?
-Matylda
(BTW, I actually agree with Baw's point. Is the world coming to an end? :D Kidding.)
When we first looked at this poem in class, I also focused on the word 'foetus' because it seemed weird that it was there amongst so many other
ReplyDeletewords with different meanings. It clearly contradicted them as it appeared to have no other relation but after seeing words supporting sadness or struggles, I did think about abortion first because I saw no other reason for him to use it. It was quite interesting how one word 'foetus' could change
the thinking about a poem as I thought he meant that the decision about the unwanted pregnancy was a battle in itself but after seeing the meaning
behind why he chose that word,I had to let the idea of abortion go.He said in his analysis,that he included the word 'foetus' to 'create a moment of
shock as the bullet hit the soldier' and I think that technique worked because seeing that word in the collapsed poem did surprise people. I also think the way it was written in a woman's perspective was effective in some ways as it gave the reader to see the difference in opinion about war from the opposite gender. When we found out in class that it was in a woman's perspective, it caused discussion about why he may of done that and that made people think in more detail. The title of the poem may have been 'Manhunt' because his wife was trying to find the 'real him' beneath so she could understand what he is going through.
-Rubika ^
ReplyDeleteWhen we first read the poem in class, I was so sure it was a man talking about killing someone. Like when the poem says about the injury and the bullet beneath his skin, I imagined it coming from someone who has just shot him. I also agree with Rubika about the fact that the word 'foetus' really stood out, as well as parachute because I thought they had nothing to do with the rest of the collapsed words.
ReplyDeleteBut the very second we started to talk about it amongst ourselves I knew that it can't have been from the killer because of the way it says 'passionate days and intimate nights', and also it must have been from a woman as well.
Armitage must have been using a lot of empathy because he speaks so passionately as the woman. I think this shows how good he is as a poet that he can switch into the shoes of a woman in the war just by talking to a couple of people who had that story.
I think that this poem is very emotional because it is almost a woman trying to save her dying husband, and at the end when Armitage wrote 'around which every nerve in his body had tightened and closed.
Then, and only then, did I come close' it makes me feel genuinely sad because when you come close to something it means you didn't succeed, but you can't always be sure. This means that the reader makes up the outcome in their head unconsciously. This is why I think the poem is quite sad.
But then I realised that the man did survive because Armitage interviewed him and his wife, and also that he survived the bullet that ricocheted through him, so either Armitage was being quite mysterious in an obscure way, or he changed the ending to fit the poem. Overall I like this poem because it is really emotional and it is rue story meaning that the feelings in it have really been felt by people.
-Lizzie
When seeing the words in class the topics that came to mind were that of adventure and anatomy as there were words to do with the body such as lung. I then paired the words with similar meaning or description. The one word that stood out amongst the others was foetus (as Lizzie and Rubika said) as to me it seems empty of emotion, just a biological fact. When I read the poem I imagined it to be from a woman's point of view yet when I heard the reading I was slightly confused until we discovered that it was from someone else's point of view. The last line of the poem also has an affect as the rest of the poem shows ow development with their relationship but after all that time the woman only "came close" meaning she still didn't succeed in regaining her relationship. It shows the affect of war and the long-term damage as physical injury may be only temporary yet the mental damage never really leaves you, therefore I think the poet was trying to express the pointless meaning of ear as he may have viewed it as causing more issues than it solves.
ReplyDeleteRhianna
When doing the task in class with the words, again the word 'foetus' didn't match the whole 'injured' theme and it stuck out the most. From this, I thought that the poem would be about abortion and how the word 'only' is repeated several times which could show regret and saying 'if only..' However, the word 'if' wasn't even mentioned in the poem, so I had to rethink what it meant. I then thought it was about war and a soldier and how he is so fragile and can be torn apart easily. This made more sense, but some elements in the poem were quite confusing such as the last stanza which didn't make much sense.
ReplyDeleteSakina
When we first saw only the jumbled words in class, I thought of war and pain. However, I then came across one word in particular that stuck out to everyone, 'foetus'. This is because it seemed to have no relevance to the rest of the words on the board. It was after seeing the word 'foetus' that everyone then started to think differently about what the poem could mean. Many concluded that it was something to do with abortion and took the words associated with pain, not as that of war, but as something to do with the pain of deciding to have or going through an abortion and the after math of that. But then the word bullet, which before was relevant stuck out, and I was quite confused. We then listened to the poem, and discovered that it was about war and pain, but not from the view of the soldier himself, but the soldiers wife. I then felt that it was about his wife trying to safe the relationship after the war had affected the soldier badly. However, like Rhianna said, the last words of the poem 'came close' seemed to represent that she wasn't able to save it.
ReplyDeleteFlorence
hi really good things up here, but could someone tell me how the poem is ambiguous, please... thanks
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