1. Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson we will: 1. Be able to analyse the language in Manhunt by Simon Armitage

2. Question 8
Compare how poets use language to present feelings in Quickdraw and one other poem from Relationships.
(36 marks)

3. Task One
Read through the poem and draw a spider diagram of all the different things you think the poem might be about.
The Manhunt

4. Task Two
The poem uses images of love and war. Divide your page into two columns and list all the different words that you associate with love and war.
Love
War
“Passionate nights”
“the blown hinge”

5. Background
The Manhunt is taken from a Channel 4 documentary, ‘Forgotten Heroes: The Not Dead.’ In the film the soldiers and their families were interviewed and Armitage’s task was to listen to their stories and turn them into poetry. In the film ‘Manhunt’ is read by Laura, the wife of a soldier who was shot in Bosnia. The poem shows Laura tending to her husband and trying to reconnect with him emotionally.

6. Imagery
Look at the images that are used in the first part of the poem. Why does the poet use these particular images?

7. Imagery
Now look at the images in the second half of the poem. Why does the poet use these types of images?

8. Language & Imagery
The poem describes the process of the slow healing of physical and mental scares. The phrases ‘only then could I’ are repeated throughout the poem to show that it is a slow and painful process. The ‘damaged, porcelain collar bone’, ‘parachute silk of his punctured lung’ and his ‘grazed heart’ make the solder appear fragile emotionally and physically.