Clown Punk presentation

The Clown Punk

How do we judge people and why?

Do our judgements say more about the person or ourselves?

The title

• Noun phrase: a simple phrase a noun described by an adjective: the arrogant doctor, my rude gran.
• What does this title suggest about the poem?
• What kind of adjective is used in this noun phrase?
• Class
• What class is the narrator? Does it matter how precise we are? What clues are there in the text about the person’s class?
• Does their class matter to them? Are they making choices about how it affects them or does it in some ways affect them without them knowing it?
• Come back to this question!
• like a basket of washing that got up
• and walked, towing a dog on a rope.
• What is this simile saying about the punk? Think about the key terms appearance and reality.
• Pixel. Where do you usually find this word? Why is it in some ways an interesting word choice here? Where is the narrator when they are commenting on the punk? What kind of view of the punk do they have?
• ‘Shot through’, ‘indelible ink’. How are these phrases a bit like the title’s noun phrase?
• ‘deflated scalp’, ‘shrunken head’: what are the images IMPLIED by these phrases? Why?
• Does it matter that the narrator starts to talk to the children in the back? How does this change of view of them?
• ‘wince and scream’ Is the children’s perspective on the punk different from the adult’s? How and why does this matter in terms of the ideas of the poem?
• ‘dyed brain’ Why is this phrase creative?

• Text patterning

  town’, ‘town clown’; ‘up’, ‘but’, ‘skin’, ‘ink’; ‘lights’, ‘time’; ‘scream’, ‘windscreen’; ‘brain’, ‘rain’ Contrasts and juxtapositions for judgement, locality references, northen accent, detachment.