Compare The Language Used to Present The Attitudes of The Speakers in The Poems &Lsquo;kid’ And &Lsquo;my Father Thought It Bloody Queer’

          In the second poem a different type of language is used to ‘Kid’, descriptive language. The poet uses this to explain the speaker’s attitude of amusement as the speaker recalls himself having a funny appearance when he was a typical teenager, ‘mop of hair’, ‘ring of silver in my ear’. This language creates the speaker as a rebellious and “cool” teenager which the speaker finds funny as he looks back in to the past.  Armitage also uses ambiguous language this means that the phrase or word could have two meanings not just one. This is used to show the speaker’s attitude of regret as his dad thought his earring looked ‘bloody queer’. He feels sorry that his dad thought he looked gay. This ambiguous language is also used to demonstrate the speaker’s ‘voice breaking’ as a teenager but also breaking now with emotions. It is not used in the poem ‘Kid’, as in that poem Armitage is creating an attitude of anger and bitterness instead. The poet uses painful language to explain the speaker’s attitude of amusement and agreement. ‘It took a jeweller’s gun to pierce the flesh’. This shows how the speaker finds it funny how he put himself through a horrible, pointless process just to look cool. An attitude of amusement. Remembering his dad’s reaction to him having an earring upsets the speaker, ‘tear’, ‘wept’. This makes him have an attitude of agreement, an agreement with his dad in which he now thought that his dad was right all along.

          In comparison, the two poems use very different types of language to express the attitudes’ of the speakers. ‘Kid’ uses language about loneliness, clichés and bitter and sarcastic language, whereas ‘My father thought it bloody queer’ uses descriptive, ambiguous and painful language to express the speaker’s attitude. Nevertheless both the poems are about relationships and growing up, which in some ways makes them very alike.