English Literature- AQA Anthology- Poetry- Character and Voice- The Clown Punk

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The Clown Punk- Simon Armitage

Keywords:

L.1 "Shonky"- Rought/Dodgey/Avoided- Neologism (A newly coined word or expression- a more individual approach)

The part of town seems dirty and desolate- undermimes the funny aspect of the poem.

L.4 "Towing"- Pulling/dragging

L.4 "But.. L.5- Don't laugh"- Juxtaposition- Broken stanza suggests that there is something wrong.

L.5 "Pixel"- Metaphor- Tiny dot.particle- 'pore'- Possibly inferring this man is mysterious/disguised.

Compares the creature (man) to a computer image- which makes him seem not quite real.

L.6- "Shot"- suggests violence or injury.

L.9 "Deflated", "Shruken"- Emptied- Ambiguous- could be an accident that's caused his physical body to decay. 

L.11 "Wince"- To Give a slight involuntary grimace or shrinking movement of the body out of pain or distress.

Irony- clowns are usually associated with laughter not fear or disgust.

L.10 "Daubed"- To paint, coar, or smear (a surface) with a thick or sticky substance in a carelessly rough or liberal way.

Society has moved on but he hasn't.

L.12 "His daft mush"- Mouth/saliva

L.12 "Slathers"- To Spread or smear (a substance) thickly or liberally (in this case his saliva)

Assonance suggets the narrator's disgust at the punk's actions.

L.13- "Dyed Brain"- Presents the extremity of this man's tattoos. (His strange reputation- an outsider to society)

L.14- "Then picture windscreen wipers"- Frames the punk so that he seems even more like a painted caricature or circus attraction. 

L.14- "Let it rain"- Ambigious- The rain can wash away the Punk's painted face. Could also suggest the children will soon forget about him. 

PURPOSE: Presenting how individuals are often severly outcasted for their physical apprearance?

FORM: Written in sonnet form. 

Irony: Sonnets are often associated with love. It has regular rhymes at the beginning of the poem, but half-rhymes in the middle section, which suggests something that seems ordered but is out of balance- Also emphasised by the use of ENJAMBMENT.

Iambic Pentameter

Cuplets of rhyme- 2 lines

"Sit"- Imperitive voice- Command

"You kids"- Remember 

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