Study Notes on Out of the Blue by Simon Armitage
Analysis of the poem
Simon Armitage's poem 'Out of the Blue' is taken his from 2008 anthology of the same name. According to the book's publishers, the poems in the anthology are presented in the form of a respone to three separate conflicts, all of which have changed the world we live in. Told from the point of view of an English trader working in the North Tower of the World Trade Centre, the poem forms part of the film 'Out Of The Blue' commissioned by Channel 5 and broadcast five years after the 9/11 attacks on America. It won the 2006 Royal Television Society Documentary Award. 'We May Allow Ourselves A Brief Period Of Rejoicing' (a quote from one of Churchill's post-war speeches), was also commissioned by Channel 5, and broadcast on the sixtieth anniversary of VE Day. The radio-poem "Cambodia" was commissioned by the BBC for "The Violence of Silence", a radio drama set in today's Cambodia thirty years after the rise of the Khmer Rouge.
The extract we are looking at in the AQA poetry anthology is taken from the final third of the poem so don't feel bad if it confuses you at first glance. It is a lengthy poem and it could be argued that some of the vital contextual material has been left out in AQA's choice of extract, but it is enough to know that the extract deals with an English stock trader, one of those people who yell 'sell, sell, sell! on various trading floors around the world, in this instance the Twin Towers of New York city.
For those who don't remember, on the 11th September 2001 terrorists flew two hijacked passenger airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre that used to dominate the Manhattan skyline in New York city. |
The first reports were that a plane had hit one of the towers causing a huge fire in the upper stories, but a short time late a second plane hit the second tower dispelling any belief that the first hit had been an accident. Another plane was crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed after the
Simon Armitage's poem 'Out of the Blue' is taken his from 2008 anthology of the same name. According to the book's publishers, the poems in the anthology are presented in the form of a respone to three separate conflicts, all of which have changed the world we live in. Told from the point of view of an English trader working in the North Tower of the World Trade Centre, the poem forms part of the film 'Out Of The Blue' commissioned by Channel 5 and broadcast five years after the 9/11 attacks on America. It won the 2006 Royal Television Society Documentary Award. 'We May Allow Ourselves A Brief Period Of Rejoicing' (a quote from one of Churchill's post-war speeches), was also commissioned by Channel 5, and broadcast on the sixtieth anniversary of VE Day. The radio-poem "Cambodia" was commissioned by the BBC for "The Violence of Silence", a radio drama set in today's Cambodia thirty years after the rise of the Khmer Rouge.
The extract we are looking at in the AQA poetry anthology is taken from the final third of the poem so don't feel bad if it confuses you at first glance. It is a lengthy poem and it could be argued that some of the vital contextual material has been left out in AQA's choice of extract, but it is enough to know that the extract deals with an English stock trader, one of those people who yell 'sell, sell, sell! on various trading floors around the world, in this instance the Twin Towers of New York city.
For those who don't remember, on the 11th September 2001 terrorists flew two hijacked passenger airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre that used to dominate the Manhattan skyline in New York city. |
The first reports were that a plane had hit one of the towers causing a huge fire in the upper stories, but a short time late a second plane hit the second tower dispelling any belief that the first hit had been an accident. Another plane was crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed after the