The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team

The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team

Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Baby Love, Oh Pretty Woman

were in the Top Ten that month, October, and the Beatles

were everywhere else. I can give you the B-side

of the Supremes one. Hang on. ‘Come See About Me?’

I lived in a kind of fizzing hope. Gargling

with Vimto. The clever smell of my satchel. Convent girls.

I pulled my hair forward with a steel comb that I blew

like Mick, my lips numb as a two-hour snog.

No snags. The Nile rises in April. Blue and white.
The humming-bird’s song is made by its wings, which beat
so fast that they blur in flight. I knew the capitals,
the Kings and Queens, the dates. In class, the white sleeve
of my shirt saluted again and again. ‘Sir!’ … ‘Correct.’
Later, I whooped at the side of my bike, a cowboy,
mounted it running in one jump. I spend down Dyke Hill,
no hands, famous, learning, dominus domine dominum.

Dave Dee Dozy … try me. Come on. My mother kept my mascot Gonk
on the TV set for a year. And the photograph. I look
so brainy you’d think I’d just had a bath. The blazer.
The badge. The tie, the first chord of A Hard Day’s Night 
up Churchill Way, up Nelson Drive, over pink pavements
that girls chalked on, in a blue evening; and I stamped
the pawprints of badgers and skunks in the mud. My country.

I want it back. The captain. The one with all the answers. ‘Bzz’.
My name was in red on Lucille Green’s jotter. I smiled
as wide as a child who went missing on the way home
from school. The keeny. I say to my stale wife‘Six hits by Dusty Springfield’. I say to my boss ‘A pint!’ ‘How can we know the dancer from the dance?’ Nobody. My thick kids wince. Name the prime Minister of Rhodesia.
My country. How many florins in a pound?

Context:

This dramatic monologue looks back onto the poetic voices childhood (mostly being part of a school team), a time where they feels that they was at their best (successful and/or popular). They are disappointed with adulthood and reminisces on this important time in their life. This is supported by the high quantity of facts.

Structure:

 The poem has no fixed rhythm, this shows the informality and how comfortable the poetic voice is with the memory. The length of the poem also suggests that the poetic voice remembers the memory fondly or that the memory was from a long time ago. The poem is divided into 4 stanzas.

Each stanza has a lexical field:

• 1960's Culture- Music, Products and Language
• Facts - (parts of this lexical field also have associations with what made Britain 'great', this further emphasises his disappointment in how both his life and his country have changed)
• British culture (there is also a semantic field of British Uniform)
• Nostalgia

Analysis:

Throughout the poem, Duffy uses a high frequency of the plosive phonemes 'B' (alveolar) and 'D' (bilabial), this is used to emphasise the excitement (it creates a sudden outburst of sound) of the memory and the thrill of being in a school team. This technique is juxtaposed through the use of the voiced soft fricative 'w' (labiovelar) phoneme, this has a similar effect by showing that the poetic voice is comfortable and that the memory is positive. The inclusion of both suggest that this memory makes the poetic voice experience a variety of emotions (eg. excitement, relaxation).

Duffy uses another phonological feature of an onomatopoeic field , examples include; 'fizzing', 'whooped' and 'bzz'. These also create excitement and optimism and help construct the atmosphere of a being in a tournament- it involves the reader within the poetic voices memory.

The 3rd Stanza- British Culture- Duffy incorporates elements of British culture within spatial nouns ('pavements', 'drive' 'evening') to create a British and comfortable environment for the poetic voices memory. The construction of comfortable environment is present in 'over pink pavements', this creates an idyllic and blissful place in the poetic voices memory- further showing how positive it is.
This stanza ends with 'my country', the short sentence and abrupt nature suggests that the poetic voice is upset about how their country has changed and no longer considered 'great'.

The Final Stanza- Nostalgia - this is when the poetic voice's memory is finishing and they return to the reality of being an adult. This is seen by 'wife', 'kids'' boss', these are all people that are important and have an impact in an adults life. The poetic voices disgust about their adult life in comparison to their childhood is shown through the creation of an ugly image- 'my stale wife'. This image suggests that marriage (an element of being an adult), specifically the poetic voice's is stale and no-longer exciting, much like adult life.  This is also seen in the simile 'I smiled as wide as a child who went missing in the way home from school', the poetic voice is still unconsciously linking themselves to being a child again. This idea concludes the poem where the poetic voice uses an interrogative sentence 'How many florins in a pound?', this is the poetic voice trying to go back to being in that memory as it is a factual question that would have been asked during their time in a team.