My wife, the English Teacher, gave me a copy of
Paper Aeroplanes by Simon Armitage for Christmas. My plan was to read a poem a night... but it has taken me a while to get started,
After reading the first poem, "Snow Joke" I thought that it seemed a bit of a token gesture to read it without thinking it through, so here are my thoughts.
Before starting though, it is worth saying that I've listened to some of Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast and I've probably learned more about analysing poetry from him than I did in my entire Secondary School education (though that could be as much to do with my failure to learn rather than my English teacher's failure to teach). One of the things I learned from Frank is to watch where lines break. If the sentence is interrupted by a line break (my wife the English teachers says this is called "enjambment") it is worth looking at both lines independently.
So, after that lengthy introduction, here I go.
First, the title: "Snow Joke". Clearly it can be read in two ways: as it is written (a joke about snow) or as it could sound ("S'no joke", i.e. "it's no joke").
The opening line:
Heard the one about the guy from Heaton Mersey?
appears to suggest it is a joke but, as the poem progresses, the second meaning seems more likely.
The next line:
Wife at home, lover in Hyde, mistress
It can't be a coincidence that the lover is in Hyde (hide), hidden from his wife, at least. The end of the line has the first example of enjambment. The "mistress" at the end of the line appears to be a comment on the "lover" in line two... but then we get to line three:
in Newton-le-Willows and two pretty girls
Ah! So there's more. Not just a wife, but a lover, and a mistress, and two more girls... Not a nice man! Then, we reach line four:
in the top grade at Werneth prep. Well,
Clearly, worse than "not nice"! Thoroughly nasty. This line marks the end of the first stanza and the "Well," at the end of the line serves as a commentary on what has gone before ("Well, what do you think of that?") and to drag us back to the "joke" and propel us into the second stanza.
I have already gone on longer than intended, so I will not continue stanza by stanza but just offer a couple more thoughts. The "guy from Heaton Mersey" is portrayed as thinking about:
what the dog does when it catches its tail
and about the snake that ate itself to death.
Is he the dog? Is he the snake?
What is the quote about there being a fine line between tragedy and comedy? This "Snow Joke" seems to end in tragedy. I was about to write that the "guy" had died... but I realise I just assumed that. It is possible he was rescued in time but, whether he lived or died, the reaction of the rescuers is tragic; bickering about who gets the credit rather than mourning a death or celebrating a life saved.
The final two lines may be a comment on the "guy" himself:
Or him who said he heard the horn, moaning
softly like an alarm clock under an eiderdown?
Was he, like the car, hiding under the covers? Was he refusing to face the reality of what a reprehensible human being he was/is? But was his behaviour as obvious as the softly moaning car horn to anyone looking out for it? (Interesting choice of "moaning" to describe the car horn!)
So, thank you to my wife for the book of poems. Thank you to Frank Skinner for helping me find a way in to think about this poem. And thank you, dear reader, for reading this far.
