Poems of the decade
Eat me – Patience Agbabi
‘Eat Me’ is a poem that explores the relationship between a ‘feeder’
(someone who takes pleasure from encouraging a partner’s weight gain)
and the narrator.
The poem takes a rigid structure, with tercets of similar length,
potentially mimicking a tiered cake, which likely represents the extreme
control and restriction the narrator is under due to her weight gain
becoming debilitating throughout the poem.
The poem also uses a significant amount of water imagery – using
metaphors suggesting the idea of exploration, desertion, and power.
Use of tercets not couplets – not a healthy couple – imbalanced
power dynamic
Connection with speaker – disconnect with partner
Alice in wonderland allusion with ‘eat me’
Use of plosive consonance
Anaphora in seventh stanza
Ten stanzas reflecting the narrator going from 30 to 40
Female voice
Half-rhymes/pararhymes - feeling of discomfort
Semantic field of exploration, water and colonisation
Enjambment – sense of building and growth
Dramatic monologue
Key quotes
‘When I hit thirty’ - the use of an idiom suggests if she hit thirty
years of ages or thirty stone in weight - ‘hit’ comes across rather
violently, foreshadowing the oppressive nature of the relationship
, ‘I did what I was told. Didn’t even taste it’ - suggests her initial
obedience to her partner, however stating she ‘didn’t’ ‘taste’ it
suggests she gains no pleasure from fulfilling her partner’s
commands
‘He asked me to get up and walk round the bed so he could watch’
- further adds to the uncomfortable undertone created in the poem,
as it creates the idea that the narrator is watched carefully by the
partner, in a controlling manner
‘The bigger the better’ - suggesting his pleasure in the control of
her weight, it becomes clear he aims to feed her until she loses her
own strength and sense of self-care
This is furthered by ‘his pleasure, to watch me swell like forbidden
fruit’
‘Too fat to leave’ - explicitly presents the unfair power dynamic,
he strives to make her unable to leave him
‘Poured olive oil down my throat’ - furthering the violent imagery,
‘poured’ creates the idea that this act is forceful.
‘I drowned his dying sentence out.’ - end stopped line, suggesting
potential death. Also portrays a change in the power play of the
relationship, leaving the narrator as overcoming her partner
‘There was nothing left in the house to eat’ - ambiguous ending,
allows the reader to question if the narrator consumed her partner
as the ultimate act of empowerment. Also has a comical undertone
Chainsaw versus the Pampas Grass – Simon Armitage
A poem exploring the metaphorical battle between a chainsaw and
pampas grass – this could suggest either an allegory for humanity versus
nature or men versus women
Lack of structure – irregular, suggesting an informal fight which is
unorganised and impulsive
, Plosive consonance and fricatives
Natural imagery versus mechanical imagery
Key quotes
‘Unlikely match’ - unfair fight - ‘match’ may suggest a couple
‘Grinding its teeth’ - personification of chainsaw
‘Knocked back a quarter-pint of engine oil’ - personification,
masculine
‘Weightless wreckage of wasps’ - death imagery, alliteration
‘it's bloody desire, its sweet tooth for the flesh of the face and the
bones underneath’ - fricatives, personification, violence
‘Ludicrous feathers’ - femininity, resentment, mocking, envious
‘Sledgehammer taken to crack the nut’ - inequality of
power/strength, overpowering
‘Plant juice spat from the pipes and tubes’ - violence, death, rape,
female genitalia are suggested with ‘tubes’
‘Blade became choked with soil or fouled with weeds’ - fight back,
not backing down
‘Like cutting at water or air with a knife’ - inequality, more power
play
‘The chainsaw seethed’ - personification, shifting blame onto the
chainsaw
‘Work back through its man-made dreams’ - man versus nature
‘The seamless urge to persist was as far as it got’ - defeat, failure
of brutality
Material – Ros Barber
Poem exploring an extended metaphor of loss. How the narrator mourns
their mother through the hanky.
Time shifts
Eat me – Patience Agbabi
‘Eat Me’ is a poem that explores the relationship between a ‘feeder’
(someone who takes pleasure from encouraging a partner’s weight gain)
and the narrator.
The poem takes a rigid structure, with tercets of similar length,
potentially mimicking a tiered cake, which likely represents the extreme
control and restriction the narrator is under due to her weight gain
becoming debilitating throughout the poem.
The poem also uses a significant amount of water imagery – using
metaphors suggesting the idea of exploration, desertion, and power.
Use of tercets not couplets – not a healthy couple – imbalanced
power dynamic
Connection with speaker – disconnect with partner
Alice in wonderland allusion with ‘eat me’
Use of plosive consonance
Anaphora in seventh stanza
Ten stanzas reflecting the narrator going from 30 to 40
Female voice
Half-rhymes/pararhymes - feeling of discomfort
Semantic field of exploration, water and colonisation
Enjambment – sense of building and growth
Dramatic monologue
Key quotes
‘When I hit thirty’ - the use of an idiom suggests if she hit thirty
years of ages or thirty stone in weight - ‘hit’ comes across rather
violently, foreshadowing the oppressive nature of the relationship
, ‘I did what I was told. Didn’t even taste it’ - suggests her initial
obedience to her partner, however stating she ‘didn’t’ ‘taste’ it
suggests she gains no pleasure from fulfilling her partner’s
commands
‘He asked me to get up and walk round the bed so he could watch’
- further adds to the uncomfortable undertone created in the poem,
as it creates the idea that the narrator is watched carefully by the
partner, in a controlling manner
‘The bigger the better’ - suggesting his pleasure in the control of
her weight, it becomes clear he aims to feed her until she loses her
own strength and sense of self-care
This is furthered by ‘his pleasure, to watch me swell like forbidden
fruit’
‘Too fat to leave’ - explicitly presents the unfair power dynamic,
he strives to make her unable to leave him
‘Poured olive oil down my throat’ - furthering the violent imagery,
‘poured’ creates the idea that this act is forceful.
‘I drowned his dying sentence out.’ - end stopped line, suggesting
potential death. Also portrays a change in the power play of the
relationship, leaving the narrator as overcoming her partner
‘There was nothing left in the house to eat’ - ambiguous ending,
allows the reader to question if the narrator consumed her partner
as the ultimate act of empowerment. Also has a comical undertone
Chainsaw versus the Pampas Grass – Simon Armitage
A poem exploring the metaphorical battle between a chainsaw and
pampas grass – this could suggest either an allegory for humanity versus
nature or men versus women
Lack of structure – irregular, suggesting an informal fight which is
unorganised and impulsive
, Plosive consonance and fricatives
Natural imagery versus mechanical imagery
Key quotes
‘Unlikely match’ - unfair fight - ‘match’ may suggest a couple
‘Grinding its teeth’ - personification of chainsaw
‘Knocked back a quarter-pint of engine oil’ - personification,
masculine
‘Weightless wreckage of wasps’ - death imagery, alliteration
‘it's bloody desire, its sweet tooth for the flesh of the face and the
bones underneath’ - fricatives, personification, violence
‘Ludicrous feathers’ - femininity, resentment, mocking, envious
‘Sledgehammer taken to crack the nut’ - inequality of
power/strength, overpowering
‘Plant juice spat from the pipes and tubes’ - violence, death, rape,
female genitalia are suggested with ‘tubes’
‘Blade became choked with soil or fouled with weeds’ - fight back,
not backing down
‘Like cutting at water or air with a knife’ - inequality, more power
play
‘The chainsaw seethed’ - personification, shifting blame onto the
chainsaw
‘Work back through its man-made dreams’ - man versus nature
‘The seamless urge to persist was as far as it got’ - defeat, failure
of brutality
Material – Ros Barber
Poem exploring an extended metaphor of loss. How the narrator mourns
their mother through the hanky.
Time shifts
