10) Football at Slack

Download as docx, pdf, or txt
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1of 4
 
Football at Slack Notes
‘Football at Slack’ 
 by Ted Hughes is an image-rich poem that talks about a fewmen who were playing football on a hill. It is taken from his 1979 collecon of poems called Remains of Elmet. The football in the rst secon is their source of merriment. However, in the next secon, they start to enjoy the rhythm of rain asthe poet captures the momentary beauty of nature in this poem. The images of the clouds thronging the sky, the sudden starng of rain, and at last, the sunpeeping through the clouds and this makes the poem an interesng one to readand imagine about.
‘Football at Slack’
by Ted Hughes consists of eight stanzas. Some stanzas of thepoem are short and some are comparably long. The overall poem is in free verse.There isn’t any regularity in the line lengths of the poem. Like the stanzas, somelines of the poem are comparably long. Whereas some lines are contracted forthe sake of emphasizing the images or ideas present in those lines.The poem starts with the descripon of a football game which is taking placebetween two men's teams in a small village at Slack, somewhere in the hills. Inthe rst line the words 'plunging' and 'bareback' stand out as being unusual. Theymight both be connected to horses. 'Plunging' suggests the way a horse moves,almost rolling up and down. 'Bareback' suggests the smooth rounded back of thehorse with a slight dip in the centre. The poet is using these words metaphorically— to describe the ups and downs of hills and valleys and the smooth tops of rounded hills. The poet refers to the men dressed in bunng or bright color jerseys. It is also a reference to their child-like spirit and spontaneity. Apart fromthat, the poet refers to their exibility and energy in the last line by the use of theverb “bounce.” .The other feature of the rst stanza is the number of 'b's':'bunng', 'Bounced', and 'blown ball bounced'. Alliteraon is used usually todraw aenon to the idea of the constantly moving ball. In the 'blownball bounced,' the harsh b sound of the three words makes us focus on the ball
 
like the men who are pung all of their concentraon into the game. It alsodescribes the sound the ball makes as it hits o the ground and players as it ispassed around.In the second stanza, the rst image presented is of the men jumping to head theball. The highly spirited men described by the phrase “merry-coloured” lookedlike water if they were all moving or owing in the same direcon —like a steadystream for they were following the movement of the ball up and down the eldand from side to side. The second image in this stanza is of the ball that wentdownhill like the sudden gush of air.In the third stanza, Hughes refers to the men running aer the ball as rubberycreatures. It seems that the football injected elascity into those men. The ball islikened to a person as it “jumped up” and he makes the men sound like the ball in'rubbery', further suggesng that their movement is like bouncing. However, theball got stuck in a “gulf of treetops”. Aer seeing what had happened, theybecame agitated and shouted at the ball together. But, without giving an ear totheir frustraons, the ball rolled down to the valley. The alliteraon which endsthe stanza draws aenon to the ball again: “the ball blew back.”In the fourth stanza, Hughes quickly paints a new picture in the poem. Whilethose men were busy shoung at the ball, suddenly the wind started to blow andclouds like stones gathered in the sky. The mood of the poem in this seconreects the men’s state of mind aer losing the ball. It seems as if the winds arecoming from “ery holes in heaven “which refers to the breaks in the clouds fromwhere the red sun is shining through, and the winds are personied. Hughesmakes them sound like a great god who is piling clouds on the distant hills. Twomore images in the stanza make the picture more vivid. 'Mad oils' suggests thatthe landscape is like an oil painng — although perhaps “mad” as everything fromthe ball, the men are almost ‘mad,’ their excitement and heightened enthusiasmis out of bounds. The rain lowered a steel press,this gives a sense of the Mother Nature lowering the clouds and producingterrible rain. It also gives the picture of the colour of the sky, a dark grey and theforce of the downpour creates a depressing mood.In the h stanza, the poet captures how those men forgot about the ball andstarted to enjoy the rainfall. Here, it seems that they were no longer mature men.They were behaving, and playing just like lile children. They were “washed and
5
 
happy”. However, the images referred to by “plastered” hair and “puddle glier”paint an interesng picture of their hair wet and damp and pressed down whiletheir kicks and jumps are throwing water from the small ponds of water likeglier of water droplets being thrown around. The word bobbed again gives usthe image of water and the idea that the men are sll cheerful. The words bobbedand up give the idea of the men being above the water and surviving the heavydownpour. This contrasts with the depressive weather from stanza four andbrightens the tone of the poem, which shows the men’s posive experience. In the sixth stanza, Hughes presents a rain-drenched picture of the landscape. Thehill appeared to the poet as a “humped world”. The word humped refers to thehilly seng and sank presents the idea that the world has disappearedunderneath the vast amount of water that has fallen. There is hyperbole in the line, “And the valleys blued unthinkable”. The valleys turned blue for the cloggedwater. At last, the poet refers to the “Atlanc depression” which was the cause of the precipitaon.In the seventh stanza, the poet refers to their acvity during the heavy downpour.Here, the poet uses hyperbolic expressions to present their level of excitement.The word leapt contrasts with sank as the men are above the water and that it isnot restraining their game play. ‘Bicycled’ also gives the impression that the menare very acve and that the rainfall is not detracng them from the enjoyment of their game. The men are obviously sll enjoying this posive experience eventhough the weather is terrible. In the last stanza, Hughes ironically refers to thesun’s sudden appearance. The golden holocaust is a metaphor for the sun. Liingthe clouds edge personies the sun, as if it is liing a blanket to see somethinginteresng. This is eecve as it contrasts with the previous damp weather. Thepoet refers to the sun as a “golden holocaust”. The poet implies that as the rainstopped and the sun started to appear in the sky, those men again returned toreality. The child inside each person again faded away. The poet holds the sunresponsible for it. That’s why he uses “holocaust” as a reference to the sun’scruelty. The nal two lines of the poem are dierent to the rest of the poem asthe weather has improved and is dry. This suggests that maybe the men’sdeterminaon throughout their game has caused the sun to come out..In conclusion, Ted Hughes poem Football at Slack conveys a posive experiencethrough the men’s enthusiasm and the unring eort of the players during a
5
 
football match taking place in awful weather condions. Hughes clever use of techniques used to contrast the men’s posive atude and the terrible weather. The poet was also born and brought up in Yorkshire. The descripon of the placeseems like the poet had an associaon with this place. He might have played onthat hill slope and lost a football just like those men in the poem lost theirs. Theauthor uses a variety of imagery in the poem to help express the experience hemost likely had as a child of viewing a football game and he had penned it downwith such descripve verbs and language that one could really imagine being in theexact situaon.
5

Reward Your Curiosity

Everything you want to read.
Anytime. Anywhere. Any device.
No Commitment. Cancel anytime.
576648e32a3d8b82ca71961b7a986505