Simon Armitage's Book of Matches

Simon Armitage's Book of Matches

Explore Armitage`s presentation of his relationship with his parents in the poems: Mother, any distance and My father thought Simon Armitage`s two poems are from a collection called Book of Matches

Explore Armitage`s presentation of his relationship with his parents

in the poems: “Mother, any distance” and “My father thought”

Simon Armitage`s two poems are from a collection called “Book of

Matches”, this is based on a party game where you have to talk about

your life, in the space of time it takes for the match to burn out

(hence the name). You start with facts and then go on to feelings .The

moments that Simon Armitage has chosen are defined moments with his

parents, he has wrote about his relationship with each of his parents

and has used poetic descriptions of times with each of his parents.

In the poem: “Mother, any distance”, Simon Armitage starts by

describing how important his mother was to him. The first word he uses

is “Mother” and he is addressing her in second person narrative and as

if he was talking directly to her. After, follows “any distance

greater than a single span requires a second pair of hands”, it has 2

meanings and the phrase is a metaphor, one being measuring and needing

help doing it but there is a second meaning in it that measuring is

going through life and needing help going through life when you can’t

do it yourself. “Requires a second pair of hands” is saying that he

has needed his mother lots to help him. “You” is direct address and in

the second person narrative like before, backing up the fact as if he

were talking to her directly and personally and the poem is a tribute

to his mother.

“You come to help me measure windows, pelmets,...

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...e a turning point as he grows out of rebellious,

casual teenage rand is turning into his father.

The differences between the fathers` relationship with the son and the

mothers` relationship with the son is the fathers` relationship is an

old fashioned relationship where the father doesn’t show any affection

to the son and criticises him and doesn’t really help him but mentally

scared as this is a defined moment with his father so there mustn’t be

any loving moments with his father. But with his mother, he shares a

much more showing affection relationship whether his mother has helped

him through his life when he needed help and she brought him into the

world and in the end there is an atmosphere where no-one wants to let

go without hurting the other but this is not the case with the father

as nobody cares about hurting each other in this relationship.