The poem is one that focuses on the injuries inflicted upon
a soldier from working in the Armed Forces, who has
safely returned home. This is from the wife's viewpoint, and
outlines the mental and physical difficulties faced due to
the husband's past experiences/injuries.
Context
Simon Armitage was born in 1963 in West
Yorkshire, and his poetry concentrates on social
issues, as well as linking to his Yorkshire roots.
He has successfully published 15 collections of
poetry, and uses casual, everyday language
(colloquial language) in his poems, appealing to
today's society.
Techniques
1) The structure used is the way the wife must be feeling, as the
poem does not have a any rhyming in it, and is in a series of
couplets. Therefore, the fact that the poem doesn't rhyme a lot
suggests the wife is feeling unstructured, lost, at the man her
husband has become from fighting out at war.
2) The title of 'Manhunt' links to how the wife must be feeling
after losing the man she thought she knew, after he had
gone to war, as a manhunt is literally hunting for someone,
often a criminal. This title is deliberately used in order to
create an effect that shows the reader how the wife must be
feeling, in the change in her husband.
3) Parts of the husbands body are referred to as inanimate objects, metaphorically. For
example, his jaw is a 'blown hinge', which could possibly be a way to describe him not being
open to her anymore, not able to express any feelings he holds, because of his past
experiences.