Homecoming AQA Coursework This poem is a puzzle for the reader - there :: English Literature

Homecoming AQA Coursework This poem is a puzzle for the endorser - at that place are some things the poet has not told us.This poem is a puzzle for the reader - t here are some things the poethas not told us, and without them, our reading of the poem relies onguesswork. This back away cares deliberate, as the first thing the poem invitesus to do is to wager at two things separately, then put them together.The poem is written in general in the second person, addressed to you.This may at first seem to be the general reader, but later in thepoem, Armitage writes I and we - and it seems that here he speaksto a particular individual. The context and other clues suggest thisis a lover or friend (someone he meets sixteen years after(prenominal) theincident he describes in the second section of the poem). Perhaps hewants the reader not so see this as something that happened once to other person, but as something all of us can, and maybe should, do.The first stanza - after the opening line - is quite easy to follow.The poet invites us think of a trust game. (Teachers and students ofdrama may populate this game. Readers of the poem lead mayhap have playedit, or something like it.) Those in front go around their arms wide,and free fall backwards, while those behind catch them and taketheir weight. The point of the game is for those in front, toovercome the instinct to twirl their legs and fall safely. The rightway to fall is only safe because thither is someone to catch us.The second stanza is far more puzzling, but will be familiar to anyonewho knows school cloakrooms. A yellow cotton summit has come off itshook. On the cloakroom floor it is trampled on - scuffed and calamitous underfoot. The sequel to this is that back home, a mother(presumably the mother of the claw whose jacket this is) puts twoand two together and gets the wrong answer (makes a...fist of it inthe dialect phrase). We do not know what the right answer would be. ace possible reading is that the mother blames the chela for beingcareless and not checking that the jacket was hung on its hook.There is a further sequel - the child sneaks out of the house atmidnight. She does not go far (no further than the call-box at thecorner of the street). We do not know whom she rings, or what becomesof it.