This poem was initially called 'Laura's Poem' and is a perfect reminder that the speaker in any poem is not necessarily the poet. Here, the poem is from the point of view of a wife, whose husband has returned from the Bosnian War. He is injured and he has changed. The wife is hunting for the man she once knew.
Watch this video clip of Simon Armitage talking about his poem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtDiOsQsnRw
Now watch extracts of a documentary about Eddie Beddoes and his wife Laura - the poem is about them.
Remember, that while Simon Armitage had these actual people in mind when he wrote his poem, the poem represents soldiers and their families in general.
Now use the link at the bottom to watch me revise the poem.
Use these headings to prepare your page for what you will learn.
•Content (what is the poem about?):
•Context (what was happening at the time?):
•Language:
1.
2.
3.
•Structure:
1.
2.
•Poet’s ideas/aim/thoughts:
•Effect on the reader:
Link to YouTube Video: The Manhunt
The Manhunt
After the first phase,
after passionate nights and intimate days,
only then would he let me trace
the frozen river which ran through his face,
only then would he let me explore
the blown hinge of his lower jaw,
and handle and hold
the damaged, porcelain collar-bone,
and mind and attend
the fractured rudder of shoulder-blade
and finger and thumb
the parachute silk of his punctured lung.
Only then could I bind the struts
and climb the rungs of his broken ribs,
and feel the hurt
of his grazed heart.
Skirting along,
only then could I picture the scan,
the foetus of metal beneath his chest
where the bullet had finally come to rest.
Then I widened the search,
traced the scarring back to its source
to a sweating, unexploded mine
buried deep in his mind, around which
every nerve in his body had tightened and closed.
Then, and only then, did I come close.
