Poem | Simon Armitage

[kaberett]

[Content note: domestic violence, parental illness, death.]

And if it snowed and snow covered the drive
he took a spade and tossed it to one side.
And always tucked his daughter up at night.
And slippered her the one time that she lied.

And every week he tipped up half his wage.
And what he didn't spend each week he saved.
And praised his wife for every meal she made.
And once, for laughing, punched her in the face.

And for his mum he hired a private nurse.
And every Sunday taxied her to church.
And he blubbed when she went from bad to worse.
And twice he lifted ten quid from her purse.

Here's how they rated him when they looked back:
sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.

Comments

[kaberett]

It's been stuck in my head, these last few days.

[vass]

*nods*

[kaberett]

(It sticks with me at least in part because it is simultaneously so wrong and so absolutely correct, and I almost wish I knew whether Armitage meant that last couplet to mean that the subject is being unfairly condemned, or whether it's just a perfect fucking expression of the tangled complex mess that is humans.)

[vass]

It made me think of James McAuley's Because (cn: emotional neglect). I like the Armitage poem better, because as you say, tangled complex mess that is humans. The McAuley seems to affirm that he can't judge without ingratitude, rather than attempt the messy feat of juggling both gratitude and pain simultaneously. And the option that leaves him, of course, is despair.