My father thought it

1. My father thought it Simon Armitage

2. Shows father’s down-to-earth attitude. Double meaning. My father thought it bloody queer, the day I rolled home with a ring of silver in my ear half hidden by a mop of hair. “You’ve lost your head. If that’s how easily you’re led You should’ve had it through your nose instead.” Starting with these words shows focus is on relationship with father and his reaction, not just the event of the piercing. What is he comparing his son to?

3. And even then I hadn’t had the nerve to numb the lobe with ice, then drive a needle through the skin, then wear a safety- pin. It took a jeweller’s gun to pierce the flesh, and then a friend to thread a sleeper in, and where it slept the hole became a sore, became a wound, and wept. Contrasts his feeble approach with that of others who pierced their own ears. Makes fun of himself. Is he also ashamed of his cowardice? It’s not a very successful teenage rebellion… What do these words imply?

4. At twenty-nine, it comes as no surprise to hear my own voice breaking like a tear, released like water, cried from way back in the spiral of the ear. If I were you, I’d take it out and leave it out next year. This is his voice – but it sounds like what his father might have said. Has he come to share his father’s values? Is removing the earring a sign of maturity? Or a sign that he is now ready to conform? He couldn’t admit the mistake he had made at the time. Why?

5. Themes • Son trying to be independent, father disapproving • Humorous tone and rhymes, but shows pain in remembering his adolescence • Could be a trivial subject, but shows how his attempt at rebellion was not very successful

6. Structure • 3 part structure: first 2 stanzas show what happened in the past, last stanza brings poet up to date with what the event means to the poet when he is 29 • Conversational style, with very frequent irregular rhymes, which emphasize key words: queer/ear, hear/year

7. Comparisons • Relationship between parent/child figures: “Mother, any distance…”, “On My First Sonne”, “Kid”. • People whose actions do not please others: “My Last Duchess”.