It Ain't What You Do

Simon Armitage writes an adventurous comparison poem to show how powerful imagination is by comparing life long dreams to one's mundane memories in the poem," It ain't what you do, it's what it does to you". The poem displays three imaginative pinnacle-like events and with those events, there are three events juxtaposing them. The poem is presented in a manner where the story is based on the experiences of a first-person speaker. The poem follows a pattern in terms of how the events are alternated and is structured in a form of decasyllabic quatrain, where there are 4 lines and syllables. The poem consist of five unrhymed quatrain, however there are rhymes within the poem itself, such as spare and pair.

The language in the poem is much more conversational and colloquial, rather than being formal. The way, in which the author says, "I have not bummed", seems to be rather informal. However, this is not surprising because the speaker states that he "lived with thieves in Manchester", which is where we can assume that he is not that rich because Manchester is a city that was filled with workers. The living conditions in an industrial city such as Manchester, is not pleasant at all. Another point to notice in this quote, is how the speaker says that he lives among the thieves, which as an informal way of stating his living condition. Further more, we can see that he is financially challenge because the speaker states, "with only a dollar to spare". Not only that but, he mentions that his pants are "busted", which gives a background of who our speaker is.

The poem consist of three events, in which are transitioned smoothly with the same register of language and tone, however the ambiance in each of the events presented differs substantially. Each of the events and its juxtaposing events are distinctive in comparison to the other events. However, in general, the poet seems to be reaching a pinnacle, in which is tranquility. The first event has a mood of its own, where he seems to wish to want to bum to America, which was a common thing at the time period, however he lived with thieves. We get a feeling of uneasiness in this stanza, especially with the colloquial language used, such as bummed and busted. These terms help the audience depict the lifestyle of the speaker. The plosive sounds in "dollar", "pair", "busted", and "bowie" helps create the ambiance because of its forceful tone, in which helps emphasize that there is threat around the speaker and at the same time it creates a thrilling sensation. On top of that, there is a mocking tone given by these terms. Alliteration is used with terms, such as "bummed", "busted", and "bowie" to draw more attention on the plosive words. In a similar fashion, an internal rhyme scheme and assonance in spare and pair, works in the same way. Then we have the Taj Mahal, where everything seems to be peaceful. The terms such as "space" "marble", and "skimmed" gives the audience a feeling of tranquility. The last event is build upon excitement, where there is a risk taken, which makes the audience anxious. By using terms such as "parachute", aircraft", "wobbly",