The Poem Give By Simon Armitage

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In this poem “Give,” Simon Armitage takes on the persona of a homeless person who has to resort to begging a person who is desperate, depressed, lonely, lazy, trampy and ostracised, etc. It is a deceptively simple twelve-line poem divided into five stanzas. In the case of ‘Give’, Simon Armitage is giving a voice to homeless people who are often ‘voiceless’. In this poem, the beggar expresses his / her bitter feelings about being on the street and being neglected. He is desperate and perhaps bitter about his situation; this is expressed through his tone and sarcasm. Stanza 1 starts off with ‘Of all the public places, dear to make a scene, I've chosen here.’ The first stanza of “Give” is a rhyming couplet, but Armitage's use of enjambment where the first line runs into the second creates a more unusual effect. The phrase ‘to make a scene’ usually means to have an argument whereas in this case it could literally mean to put on a show.…show more content…
Armitage also says ‘I'm on the street, under the stars.’ Here he uses alliteration to make the describing more
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