Armitage describes ‘every round as it rips through (the looter’s) life’ and how his injuries are so severe that the speaker can see ‘broad daylight on the other side’. However, in ‘Remains’, it is not only the physical injuries inflicted by war, but also the psychological effects that the soldier is suffering from.

5. MEANING/MESSAGE The manhunt is about the patience and care of love. The wife in the poem is methodical and thorough in her search, exploring her husband’s injured body with love and care. The poem also explores the effects of war on those in the armed services.

“Remains” was published by the British poet Simon Armitage in 2008 as part of his collection The Not Dead, a series of war poems based on the testimonies of ex-soldiers.

The man has a “grazed heart”, perhaps literally from an injury caused by “the metal beneath his chest”, but also metaphorically. He is unable to connect with his wife, unwilling to speak of his experiences, and so their loving relationship is affected.

Simon Armitage

Attitudes, themes and ideas The Manhunt is about the patience and care of love. The wife in the poem is methodical and thorough in her search, exploring her husband’s injured body with love and care. The poem also explores the cost of war on those serving in the armed forces.

“A Wife in London” is a bleak anti-war poem by the English poet Thomas Hardy. The poem focuses on a woman who receives the tragic news of her husband’s death in the war. Then, to make matters worse, a letter from the husband himself arrives, talking optimistically about future plans.

The Horror and Wastefulness of War. “Mametz Wood” is a poem based on a particular episode of World War I, in which around 4,000 Allied soldiers of Welsh nationality were killed. In the poem, each soldier’s body represents a life that was in a way unfulfilled, or at least cut short.

Eddie Beddoes was a soldier working on a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia in 1997. Nobody thought that there was any danger, but during the mission Eddie was shot and suffered injuries which later haunted him. He was only 19 years old and had his whole life in front of him. He suffered PTSD as a result of the shooting.

The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation; the opposite of end-stopped. William Carlos Williams’s “Between Walls” is one sentence broken into 10 enjambed lines: the back wings.

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He wrote his first poem aged 10 as a school assignment. Armitage first studied at Colne Valley High School, Linthwaite, and went on to study geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic.

He suffered severe PTSD as a result of his experiences and the poem recalls one particular event where the soldier shot the looter of a bank and was left with horrendous flashbacks reliving the moment of the man’s death.

University of Portsmouth

Background to Remains Armitage was reportedly so inspired by the program that he wrote the collection of war poetry in almost-dedication to them.

Remains is formed of eight stanzas . The first seven stanzas are in largely unrhymed quatrains . The final stanza consists of only two lines and therefore stands out, emphasising the fact the speaker cannot rid himself of the memory of the killing. It could also imply disintegration in the speaker’s state of mind.

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It is based on Guardsman Tromans, who fought in Iraq in 2003. *Armitage said ‘These are poems of survivors- the damaged exhausted men who return from war in body but never, wholly, in mind. ‘ CHECK-POINT! 1.

Originally broadcast a year ago in a Channel 4 documentary of the same name, The Not Dead is a short collection of war poems written, not in battle, but as a response to the testimonies of ex-soldiers featured in the programme. Each poem focuses on a flashback scene one of the ex-soldiers has struggled to forget.

Poppies was her response to a commission for war poems by the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. Her poem was a response to the losses already suffered during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She felt, as the mother of two teenage boys, that speaking from a mother’s perspective about loss would be powerful.

Similarly in Remains, the poet uses a violent and gruesome description of the event to show how much the event has seeped into the soldier’s mind. This is evident when it says “I see every round as it rips through his life/ I see broad daylight on the other side”.

The Monotony and Meaninglessness of War Owen’s “Exposure” is a poem about war, yet it focuses very little on actual fighting. In this way, the poem exposes both the trauma and sheer monotony of warfare.

In Remains, the writer uses the term ‘his bloody life in my bloody hands. ‘ The repetition of the adjective ‘bloody’ show that the memory of the event keeps coming back to him, supporting the idea that he suffers from PTSD.

Both emphasise the lack of escapism from war and the impact this has on soldiers plunged into this harsh reality. Bayonet Charge presents the idea of nature being impacted by war as well as the soldiers. Exposure on the other hand, clearly displays and focuses more on the impact of war on the protagonists nation.

Bayonet Charge by Ted Hughes describes the few desperate moments of a soldier’s charge against a defended position, dramatising the feelings of fear, dislocation and confusion.

In both ‘Bayonet Charge’ and ‘Remains’, we are presented with the idea that war is haunting and inescapable – perhaps in a similar way to PTSD. The poet uses ominous, unusual words such as “perhaps” and “possibly” which could suggest that the soldier doesn’t remember much detail about what happened during war.

Both poems serve as a mouthpiece to expose the reality of war. However, Exposure presents war as futile whereas, Charge of the Light Brigade, presents war as honourable and brave.

Try comparing Exposure to these other poems: Remains by Simon Armitage. Anthem For Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen.

Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote evocatively about the battle in his poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. Tennyson’s poem, written 2 December and published on 9 December 1854, in The Examiner, praises the brigade (“When can their glory fade?

In ‘Bayonet Charge’ and ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’, both poets present war as a terrible experience which cannot be justified by any cause. Here, Tennyson shows how grateful he is for the soldiers who fought in the Crimean War and shows that they should be honoured.