Remains by Simon Armitage Flashcards
The poem in a nutshell
Written in first person from the perspective of a soldier, this poem can be seen as having two halves.
In the first, the voice recounts a memory from war in which he and two other soldiers killed looters raiding a bank.
In the second, he explains how the memory of this scene still haunts him. There is a suggestion that he is suffering from PTSD.
The voice of this narrator is powerful as he moves from past to present tense (giving his memories a sense of immediacy) and uses colloquial language. His ordinary tone and use of colloquialisms, brings these horrors closer to the reader, as they are told in this very
everyday, ordinary voice. The makes his mental scars more painful for the reader.
Background
This poem is part of a small collection of poems written for ‘the Not Dead’. This term refers to the ex-service men and women who have survived wars and are now dealing with its after-effects. Each of these poems focuses on a flashback scene that the ex-soldier
has struggled to forget.
‘Remains’ was written for a soldier who served in Basra, Iraq
‘one of them legs it up the road’
This use of colloquial language, which occurs mainly in the first half of the poem, makes the description of killing seem casual.
In the second half the tone is less casual as he explains his memories and how ‘the drugs won’t flush him out’.
The use of imagery here shows his tortured mind.
‘every round as it rips through his life’
The harsh ‘r’ sound reflects the violence of the image. It
portrays his memory more vividly as it seems to bring it to life through its sound.
‘his bloody life in my bloody hands’
The repetition of ‘bloody’ shows us that this memory of death keeps returning. It also suggests that his tortured memories of war are flooded with guilt for taking this man’s life, making the reader sympathise with him.
Aspects of Power or Conflict
The horrors of war are explored through the voice of a soldier suffering with PTSD. We hear his flashback
story of war and then the on-going battle, told in the present tense, of his recurring memories of conflict and
killing.
Poems that can be linked
‘War Photographer’, which explores the internal conflict for photographers who shoot with their cameras
rather than with guns.
