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Context
Simon Armitage was born in 1963 in West Yorkshire, where he still
lives. He studied Geography at Portsmouth University and
completed an MA at Manchester University, where he wrote his
dissertation [dissertation: A long essay on a specific topic, often
following a strong line of argument or giving a lot of detail about the
topic. ] on the effects of television violence on young offenders.
Afterwards he worked as a probation officer, a job which influenced
many of the poems in his first collection, Zoom! (1989).
His poetry demonstrates a strong concern for social issues, as well
as drawing on his Yorkshire roots. Armitage is often noted for his
"ear" holding a strong sense of rhythm and metre [metre: The
rhythm in a line of poetry; the number of 'metric feet' (units in a
pattern of rhythms) in a line of verse. Each foot usually contains one
stressed and one or more unstressed syllables. ].
Armitage is not only a poet: as well as publishing 15 collections of
poetry, he has written for film, television and radio, completed two
novels as well as non-fiction books, and writes the lyrics for his band
The Scaremongers. He has also written translations of the Middle
English tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Homer's
Odyssey.
Subject matter
Armitage wrote Out of the Blue for the 5th anniversary of '9/11' the
attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11th September
2001 in which 2,976 people died, including 67 British people.
The poem is a long one (over 15 pages). It tells the story of that
morning from the point of view of a man who works on the 80th floor
of the North tower the first tower to be hit and the last to fall. It
recalls how, on an ordinary bright clear September morning,
ordinary people went to work in their ordinary offices and of how
the world changed in two moments of sudden, astonishing violence.
In this extract, we learn that the narrator is a man who appears in
one of the many news clips that were repeatedly beamed out across
the world that morning and for many days afterwards. The clip
shows people high up in the burning tower, clinging to the windows
as they escape the burning heat inside. One figure is clearly seen
waving a white shirt around and around. It is this figure that
trying to escape the heat and smoke but the only way out is
through the windows, impossibly high above the streets below.
The extract begins with a note of hope. He is on TV noticed by a TV
viewer somewhere across the world. But this point of connection is
meaningless. While the image is clear, the pain, the terror, and the
meaning of that image are not: "Do you think you are watching,
watching a man shaking crumbs/or pegging out washing?" In stanza
four he is confronting his limited options. By the end his death is
inevitable.
Language and imagery
Language
The challenge of the poet is to put this extreme event into words. To
describe what it looks like (to a viewer on TV) and imagine what it
feels like (to a person trapped inside the building). Armitage plays
up this difficultly using everyday, accessible language and ordinary
imagery throughout the poem. For example:
"picked me out" as we might pick out someone from a family
portrait.
"white cotton shirt" as we might put on in the morning.
"shaking crumbs"; "pegging out washing" as people might do
everyday at home.
These images highlight the ordinary lives that are being lost and the
ordinary moments that will be denied the victims. They also express
the viewers inability to comprehend what is happening. We simply
dont have the vocabulary to express it.
Armitage evokes a sense of powerlessness by using repetition
[repetition: A word or phrase that is used again and again so that it
forms a pattern of sound or meaning, often for emphasis or to make
a particular point. ], either of words or of sounds ("twirling, turning"
or "waving, waving"). This expresses the pointless repetition of
actions (such as the man waving his shirt). Nothing can make any
difference now.
One word the narrator uses to express his sense of horror is
"appalling". The only way he can make it stronger is by repeating it.
This is a word we might apply to the weather on a very rainy day.
The man in fact uses this word to describe the thousands of feet he
will have to drop to his death when he can no longer grip the ledge