The Manhunt

For the latest Poem of the Week, we return to the author of our first one last term, 'The Catch'. In the Sunday Times, Simon Armitage this week wrote (here) a piece called 'Battlefield Salvos', about his experience of talking to those traumatised by war for a Channel 4 documentary (C4, 12.11.07, 10pm) :-

Forgotten Heroes: The Not Dead is a war film. It’s about returning soldiers. And, in keeping with the time-honoured and dignified tradition of war poetry, the mode of expression is verse ... the last word comes not from a man but from Laura, Eddie’s wife. Tracing the scar of a bullet that took away part of her husband’s face, then continued pin-balling through his body, grazing his heart along the way, she describes the slow and sometimes painful process of trying to reach him, touch him, love him and make him human again.

So this is both a war poem, and a moving love poem. Read it here.