Send No Money

Theme:

This poem is a symbolic poem about time, which is a personification/anthropomorphism throughout the poem. There is a difference between the illusions and reality for the persona. Regret and ageing are also themes within the poem, the persona is growing up and moving on from youth.

Content:

The poem is based on a dodgy advert that uses the phrase 'send no money'. The persona in the poem is young, and doesn't understand life so gets 'time' to explain things for him.

Structure:

The rhyme scheme in this poem is: ABCDEFEF, like that when life begins everything is new and different yet throughout life you become to understand things and how life is repetitive and normal is now.

Analysis:

• The title 'Send No Money' is an imperative, don't send help, I can do it for myself.
• 'The fobbed impendent belly of Time' describes standing under the watch-line, the great expanse of time that has a belly which makes it sound living, and almost frightening. Time has a capital letter, as if it were an object/person.
• 'Tell me the truth, I said' suggests the persona wants answers, and are willing to be taught and develop an understanding for life. These imperatives make the persona sound eager, desperate and competitive.
• 'All the other lads there were itching to have a bash', they want to get into life and experience things for themselves.
• 'So he patted my head', time is a personification and is patronising towards the persona.
• 'There's no green in your eye', this implies that the persona isn't envious towards the other boys. He's naive and optimistic about life, asking all the universal questions
• Time tells him to 'sit here and watch the hail' to watch life pass and wait for time to affect him. The persona is gullible and thanks time and sits down and waits like he says, it's quite childlike, polite and simplistic.
• 'Half life is over now' which suggests that the last stanza is when the persona has grown up and lived half his life. 'Full face on dark mornings' implies he sees it all now, that life is quite cynical and sad compared to before. 'The bestial visor' is like a beastly, savage cover helmet, that time is scary, 'bent in' means destroyed and damage. Life was violent, and doesn't live up to the happiness he felt before, quite depressing in fact. The persona reflects and looks back at what sitting around has shown - 'sod all'. They realise they have learnt nothing, and are disappointed with this. Like adverts, they don't live up to expectation. The last two lines of the stanza include lots of alliteration of the letter T, a harsh, bitter sound. This shows the fact that he kept trying to find answers, the repetition of this. The persona's youth was wasted, and they regret the loss of time, and it becomes ironic to look back on childhood.