Simon Armitage 33e6b

Simon Armitage: Extract from Out of the Blue Context Simon Armitage was born in 1963 in West Yorkshire, where he still lives. He studied Geography at Portsmouth University and completed an MA at Manchester University, where he wrote his dissertation [dissertation: A long essay on a specific topic, often following a strong line of argument or giving a lot of detail about the topic. ] on the effects of television violence on young offenders. Afterwards he worked as a probation officer, a job which influenced many of the poems in his first collection, Zoom! (1989). His poetry demonstrates a strong concern for social issues, as well as drawing on his Yorkshire roots. Armitage is often noted for his "ear" – holding a strong sense of rhythm and metre [metre: The rhythm in a line of poetry; the number of 'metric feet' (units in a pattern of rhythms) in a line of verse. Each foot usually contains one stressed and one or more unstressed syllables. ]. Armitage is not only a poet: as well as publishing 15 collections of poetry, he has written for film, television and radio, completed two novels as well as non-fiction books, and writes the lyrics for his band The Scaremongers. He has also written translations of the Middle English tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Homer's Odyssey. Subject matter Armitage wrote Out of the Blue for the 5th anniversary of '9/11' – the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11th September 2001 in which 2,976 people died, including 67 British people. The poem is a long one (over 15 pages). It tells the story of that morning from the point of view of a man who works on the 80th floor of the North tower – the first tower to be hit and the last to fall. It recalls how, on an ordinary bright clear September morning, ordinary people went to work in their ordinary offices – and of how the world changed in two moments of sudden, astonishing violence. In this extract, we learn that the narrator is a man who appears in one of the many news clips that were repeatedly beamed out across the world that morning and for many days afterwards. The clip shows people high up in the burning tower, clinging to the windows as they escape the burning heat inside. One figure is clearly seen waving a white shirt around and around. It is this figure that

Armitage chooses as his narrator [narrator: The teller of a story; the voice in a text that describes or narrates the events of the plot; either a character in the story, or an authorial voice who gives a commentary on events but doesn't take part. ]. In the poem, the narrator is desperately signalling for help. He then realises that he has been spotted and he begins to talk to one of the people who has spotted him – the reader of the poem. This creates a delicate, intimate, human connection, which might seem full of hope. This connection, however, is tragic. By twirling and turning his shirt, the narrator is able to attract the attention of the world – but only over the television. The help the narrator needs, therefore, simply cannot come. Both narrator and reader are helpless. The narrator, however, is doomed to die. Form and structure Form The poem is in short, four-lined stanzas [stanza: A group of lines of poetry that make up a unit - like a paragraph in a piece of prose; a verse. ]. This form suggests the narrator’s attempts to maintain selfcontrol. The variations in line lengths, however, betray his changing emotions. The lines vary from short, clear thoughts and questions ("you have picked me out", "So when will you come?", "A bird goes by") to a desperate awareness that his life is poised above an "appalling" void. The last phrase (or sentence) of stanza five mirrors the falling, tumbling motion of the people falling thousands of feet to their death: "Appalling That others like me Should be wind-milling, wheeling, spiralling, falling." The line goes first backwards (from "appalling" to "that others…") then forwards again, expressing the spiral movement of the falling bodies. Structure This extract is taken from a key age towards the end of the poem. Both towers have been hit by planes. The people inside the buildings, above the impact points, realise they cannot escape down the lifts or stairs. The building is burning and the occupants are

trying to escape the heat and smoke – but the only way out is through the windows, impossibly high above the streets below. The extract begins with a note of hope. He is on TV – noticed by a TV viewer somewhere across the world. But this point of connection is meaningless. While the image is clear, the pain, the terror, and the meaning of that image are not: "Do you think you are watching, watching a man shaking crumbs/or pegging out washing?" In stanza four he is confronting his limited options. By the end his death is inevitable. Language and imagery Language The challenge of the poet is to put this extreme event into words. To describe what it looks like (to a viewer on TV) and imagine what it feels like (to a person trapped inside the building). Armitage plays up this difficultly – using everyday, accessible language and ordinary imagery throughout the poem. For example: "picked me out" – as we might pick out someone from a family portrait. "white cotton shirt" – as we might put on in the morning. "shaking crumbs"; "pegging out washing" – as people might do everyday at home. These images highlight the ordinary lives that are being lost and the ordinary moments that will be denied the victims. They also express the viewer’s inability to comprehend what is happening. We simply don’t have the vocabulary to express it. Armitage evokes a sense of powerlessness by using repetition [repetition: A word or phrase that is used again and again so that it forms a pattern of sound or meaning, often for emphasis or to make a particular point. ], either of words or of sounds ("twirling, turning" or "waving, waving"). This expresses the pointless repetition of actions (such as the man waving his shirt). Nothing can make any difference now. One word the narrator uses to express his sense of horror is "appalling". The only way he can make it stronger is by repeating it. This is a word we might apply to the weather on a very rainy day. The man in fact uses this word to describe the thousands of feet he will have to drop to his death when he can no longer grip the ledge

he is clinging to. The emotional power of the poem lies in this understated use of language, the collision of the mundane [mundane: Something which is dull or every-day. Very ordinary. ] (ordinary) words and the horrific subject matter. Imagery This section of the poem is drawn from a TV image – and Armitage plays with this idea. He exposes the distance between the viewer and the event – and the narrator’s attempt to distance himself from his inevitable fate (jumping from the window). So while the viewer sees the strange image of a "white cotton shirt" the narrator has to remind us what this image is: "In fact I am waving, waving." For him, the action is simple and clear. It is a "fact" – but the tragedy of the poem is in the way the observer and the narrator are at once so close and yet so far away. The "fact" of the waving is not clear. What has happened is incomprehensible [incomprehensible: Impossible to understand. ], and the image of waving can still be misinterpreted [misinterpreted: Understood a text to say something which it does not/ can not. Misunderstood. ]: is it waving hello, goodbye, calling for help or, as it turns out, surrendering to inevitable death (as in waving the white flag of surrender)? The event is so unreal that our interpretation [interpretation: A specific understanding of what a text is saying; a view of the text. There is usually more than one possible interpretation. ] of images becomes unreal. The narrator criticises this response in us in stanza three. Yet he also finds himself using familiar images to hide the appalling truth of his dilemma. He describes himself in line 16 as not being on the point of "leaving, diving". Leaving suggests an image of leaving work, something millions of people do everyday. Diving suggests an elegant movement, an adventure. What he means, however, and what he must confront, is that he will need to let go of the edge and plunge to his death on the pavement below. Attitudes, themes and ideas The main focus on the poem is on how hard it is to understand an event like this. When we think back on that day, how do we connect meaningfully with the people who died? This is made doubly difficult because so many people watched the events unfold on television. The victims need for help was equalled only by the viewers’ inability to give it. This terrible irony [irony: A literary device where there is a mismatch between the actual meaning and what is implied (sarcasm

is a heavy form of irony). Dramatic irony is where the audience knows something crucial of which characters are blissfully unaware. ] is reflected in the final stanza where positive images are turned on their head: "Sirens below are wailing, firing" sees the sound of ambulances rising from the ground become a threat or a torment (the sirens are firing like guns). "I am failing, flagging." returns us to the image of the opening – but the neat irony that turns "waving" to "flagging" again hides the appalling reality of what is happening. The emotional power is in the understatement [understatement: A literary device where a writer deliberately makes something seem less serious or important than it is, with the effect of creating humour or emphasis. ]. Understatement is used because we have no way of adequately [adequately: Something is done/ exists to a good enough standard to be acceptable. ] understanding something so senseless, so strange, so…appalling. This point is made clear in the only one-word line (in stanza 6): the poem is about "believing" your eyes and understanding the unimaginable decisions those victims had to face. They knew they were going to die, could see people falling past them, and needed to make a final connection with loved ones who were still a phone-call away ("do you see me, my love"). Each dot on the TV screen was not an abstract [abstract: Not concrete: an idea or concept. For example 'love' or 'evil'. ] image but a real person about to become one of the statistical 2,976 who died. Comparison Mametz Wood – both of these poems deal with death on a large scale and the relationship between personal tragedy and social history. In Armitage’s poem, the dead are preserved in TV images, their fate made strange and distant by the medium of television. In Sheers’ work, the dead are preserved by the earth, the real trauma of their deaths made strange and distant by the process of natural decay. The Charge of the Light Brigade – an unusual comparison, but both poems work as public memorials for disasters that became widespread media events. Both poems also describe victims caught up in a disaster not of their making. The difference lies in the way the disasters are presented. Tennyson elevates the soldiers to heroes. Armitage shows the link between the victims and the

spectators is the same. They were as ordinary as us – and that is where the tragedy lies. Sample question Whatever grade you are working towards, the basic structure of any answer will be the same: The introduction will explain the relevance of the question to what feelings the poem expresses and an overview of the story the poem tells. Paragraph that covers form. Paragraph that covers structure. Paragraph that covers language (sound and verbal imagery). Conclusion: You then conclude on the meaning that emerges from this. For each point, you need to provide evidence (a quote or reference) and an explanation. Question How does the poet present the experience of conflict in Out of the Blue? Answer Points you could make: In Out of the Blue the conflict is not between soldiers on a battlefield but between unseen terrorists and civilians. This creates the main conflict in the poem: between the extraordinary consequences of terrorist action and the ordinary lives of the victims. Armitage starts by using the form to illustrate the subject: the poem looks like a tower, with at least seven lines leaning out of it like the narrator. He then starts by drawing a direct connection between the narrator and the viewer ("you"). This shows that while the experience of conflict (the destruction of the Twin Towers) is extraordinary and strange, the people caught up in it are just like us.

Armitage also uses contrasting language to express this conflict between the ordinary and the extraordinary: shocking images such as the "building burning" and "soul worth saving" are contrasted with domestic images such as the "white cotton shirt" and "pegging out washing". He uses strange imagery to suggest how unreal the experience of conflict is (heat is "bullying", he may be "leaving, diving", people are "wind-milling, wheeling" like children playing). The use of ‘ing’ forms run throughout the poem (only 8 lines out of 28 do not have it). This present continuous form shows how time seems to be suspended, just as the man is suspended on the window-sill. The ordinary language shows an emotional restraint. The –ing form shows he is clinging to the present. Together they express the main feeling of the poem. The most difficult experience in conflict is having to confront the reality of your own coming death.