Poems of the Decade NOTES EASY TO
STUDY
Eat Me - Language
Key themes- food, cannibalism, temptation, relationships
'EAT ME' And i ate/did what i was told. Didn't even taste it.
- blindly follows instruction, disempowered submissive, enjambment -
automatically follows, no control
caesura and short sentences = tension, contemplation retrospective?
Alliteration - 'broad belly wobble', 'judder like a juggernaut' =
emphasise the movement, the words 'flow' like her fat
He is taking pleasure in watching her - desire
sexual imagery = 'girls i can burrow inside', she is a receptacle,
she is like land
colonialism
Possessive pronouns = his jacuzzi, his pleasure = objectifies and
subjugates her
compared to a luxury item
'swell' vs 'rush of fast food' - her pleasure is short term
fruit imagery = forbidden, exotic image, colonial
olive oil
water imagery = beached whale, tidal wave of flesh
my globe of a cheek
drowned in my flesh/his dying sentence
power shift , she is dominant, 'roll over on top', he enabled her to
kill him by feeding her,
ambiguous ending
end stopped lines = closure, control, she is free
Eat Me - Structure
Rigid 3 line stanzas
- strict regime imposed by feeder, or the control she imposes on her
,story, or her lack of retaliation
routine and consistency
dramatic end stopped lines
the speaker is aggressive
Dramatic monologue = she has ultimate triumph
seeking comfort? confessional?
Half rhyme = uncomfortable, like their relationship or her
relationship with food?
patterns of assonance alliteration and repetition = claustrophobia,
cloying, excess, sensuous
Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass- Simon Armitage
Key themes- masculine v feminine, destruction, man v nature, idea of
nature prevailing
A man attempts to cut down some pampas grass using a chainsaw, the
chainsaw is representative of men and the pampas grass represents
women (each are personified) the chainsaw is presented as rage-filled
and eventually fails in cutting down the pampas grass as the blade
becomes "fouled with weeds" whereas the grass just grows back, also
showing nature prevailing over man.
'Chainsaw VS the pampas grass' -Language
Traditional stereotypes - but destroyed as the man is reduced to
impotence
Chainsaw vs the Pampass grass - structure
8 stanzas, varied line length and stanza length
- inconsistency and confusion, conflict like the Chainsaw
no enjambment and end stopped lines
short sentences, emphatic
informal tone and phrases, humour
ellipsis and hyphon - pause like natural speech
cyclical narrative - nature will always prevail
power dynamic shifts
conversational tone -> lyrical tone
contrast the imagery, craft of the language
Material- Ros Barber
, Key themes- death, motherhood, childhood, nostalgia, past v present
An elegy about her mother's death, relating particularly to her
handkerchief which raises nostalgic feelings about her childhood. She
then returns to the present and questions her own methods of raising
her children- rather than the permanence of "material handkerchiefs"
she is left with "tissues and uncertainty"
Material - Language
Material - structure
Rhythm - fast paced, childlike
personal tone, humour colloquial
regular square verses - material, order that mother represents
traditional structure, end stopped last line
but breaks tradition in stnaza 5 and 6 and no capitalisation
in 6 she is immersed in memory
half rhyme - uncertainty, inadequacy, breaking away from mother
extended symbolism
frustration and conflict
constrained by tradition
History- John Burnside
Key themes- death, tragedy (set straight after 9/11), childhood,
nature
This poem links an outing to the beach with his son with the 9/11
tragedy, with each action symbolising an element of the disaster
("finding evidence of life in all this driftwork"), and realises that
only man could've made these horrible things happen the poem ends
with the poet wanting to hold on to the purity and innocence of
childhood. The staggered structure also plays a key role in that it
creates a physical representation of the destruction.
History - language
History structure
Highly irregular free verse
- confusion, instability, emotion, no control, erratic, destruction
Structured passages
- collected thoughts, philosophical
mixture of confusion and clarity
STUDY
Eat Me - Language
Key themes- food, cannibalism, temptation, relationships
'EAT ME' And i ate/did what i was told. Didn't even taste it.
- blindly follows instruction, disempowered submissive, enjambment -
automatically follows, no control
caesura and short sentences = tension, contemplation retrospective?
Alliteration - 'broad belly wobble', 'judder like a juggernaut' =
emphasise the movement, the words 'flow' like her fat
He is taking pleasure in watching her - desire
sexual imagery = 'girls i can burrow inside', she is a receptacle,
she is like land
colonialism
Possessive pronouns = his jacuzzi, his pleasure = objectifies and
subjugates her
compared to a luxury item
'swell' vs 'rush of fast food' - her pleasure is short term
fruit imagery = forbidden, exotic image, colonial
olive oil
water imagery = beached whale, tidal wave of flesh
my globe of a cheek
drowned in my flesh/his dying sentence
power shift , she is dominant, 'roll over on top', he enabled her to
kill him by feeding her,
ambiguous ending
end stopped lines = closure, control, she is free
Eat Me - Structure
Rigid 3 line stanzas
- strict regime imposed by feeder, or the control she imposes on her
,story, or her lack of retaliation
routine and consistency
dramatic end stopped lines
the speaker is aggressive
Dramatic monologue = she has ultimate triumph
seeking comfort? confessional?
Half rhyme = uncomfortable, like their relationship or her
relationship with food?
patterns of assonance alliteration and repetition = claustrophobia,
cloying, excess, sensuous
Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass- Simon Armitage
Key themes- masculine v feminine, destruction, man v nature, idea of
nature prevailing
A man attempts to cut down some pampas grass using a chainsaw, the
chainsaw is representative of men and the pampas grass represents
women (each are personified) the chainsaw is presented as rage-filled
and eventually fails in cutting down the pampas grass as the blade
becomes "fouled with weeds" whereas the grass just grows back, also
showing nature prevailing over man.
'Chainsaw VS the pampas grass' -Language
Traditional stereotypes - but destroyed as the man is reduced to
impotence
Chainsaw vs the Pampass grass - structure
8 stanzas, varied line length and stanza length
- inconsistency and confusion, conflict like the Chainsaw
no enjambment and end stopped lines
short sentences, emphatic
informal tone and phrases, humour
ellipsis and hyphon - pause like natural speech
cyclical narrative - nature will always prevail
power dynamic shifts
conversational tone -> lyrical tone
contrast the imagery, craft of the language
Material- Ros Barber
, Key themes- death, motherhood, childhood, nostalgia, past v present
An elegy about her mother's death, relating particularly to her
handkerchief which raises nostalgic feelings about her childhood. She
then returns to the present and questions her own methods of raising
her children- rather than the permanence of "material handkerchiefs"
she is left with "tissues and uncertainty"
Material - Language
Material - structure
Rhythm - fast paced, childlike
personal tone, humour colloquial
regular square verses - material, order that mother represents
traditional structure, end stopped last line
but breaks tradition in stnaza 5 and 6 and no capitalisation
in 6 she is immersed in memory
half rhyme - uncertainty, inadequacy, breaking away from mother
extended symbolism
frustration and conflict
constrained by tradition
History- John Burnside
Key themes- death, tragedy (set straight after 9/11), childhood,
nature
This poem links an outing to the beach with his son with the 9/11
tragedy, with each action symbolising an element of the disaster
("finding evidence of life in all this driftwork"), and realises that
only man could've made these horrible things happen the poem ends
with the poet wanting to hold on to the purity and innocence of
childhood. The staggered structure also plays a key role in that it
creates a physical representation of the destruction.
History - language
History structure
Highly irregular free verse
- confusion, instability, emotion, no control, erratic, destruction
Structured passages
- collected thoughts, philosophical
mixture of confusion and clarity
