Michael Woods writes about Homecoming

This poem deals with the complexity of family and romantic relationships and the way they change or endure. The frame of the poem is a memory of two things that become fused in the speaker’s mind in much the same way as a poet fuses ideas in a metaphor. In fact, Armitage’s opening line is a diagram of what poet’s do with language when they forge metaphors from apparently disparate ideas. In doing this, Armitage is drawing attention to his own craft, alerting the reader to “two things on their own” that may have autonomous and separate identities but also “both at once” so that they become fused and consequently more significant in relation to one another.

The opening word, “Think” requires the reader to be at mental attention. Armitage is preparing us for the kind of imaginative thought process that creates metaphors. The two separate things Armitage presents are a trust game and a yellow cotton jacket.

The first stanza draws attention to, and then describes, the game with which many of us will be familiar. One person spreads their arms and allows themselves to fall backwards, trusting that those behind them will catch her or him. The person investing the trust is described as being in “free-fall” like a parachutist who has just jumped out of an aeroplane and is in that phase of the drop before the chute opens – it is an experience filled with both fear and exhilaration; a leap into the unknown that requires absolute “blind” faith.

Stanza two introduces the second thing, “one canary-yellow cotton jacket”. The garment is owned by a child who discovers it “scuffed and blackened underfoot” (line 7) in the school cloakroom. “Back home” (line 7) the child’s mother thinks the child has been neglectful of the jacket. The ensuing conflict between mother and child is conveyed convincingly through a series of images and phrases that make the situation familiar to the reader. The speaker’s mother is “the very model of a model of a mother” which humorously takes the words of Major General Stanley a famous Gilbert and Sullivan operetta character in The Pirates of Penzance who sings: “I am the very model of a modern major general”. Armitage humorously aligns the mother with a figure of military authority but modifies the words of the song to convey the speaker’s rueful resignation to the fact that his mother is not just a “model” of a mother but a model for all models. The first “homecoming” related in the poem is fraught. The phrase “makes a proper fist of it” is ambiguous as to “make a proper fist” of something is a colloquialism for making a good attempt at it. Here, the idea of being a “model” mother, an example to all mothers, is undermined because the clear implication is that the situation is turned into violence against the child. The use of the word “yours” in line 8 alerts us to the sound of the poem being read aloud to an audience. The commas either side of “yours” indicate the timing of delivery and signal for us the comic effect this is likely to have ‘live’. We should not forget that Simon Armitage is a consummate performer of his poems. This sort of detail reminds us that poems need to be read aloud in our heads, even if we do not speak them aloud with our voices. Another phrase, “points the finger” (line 10) creates the visual image of the mother’s accusation of the child whilst simultaneously suggesting something of a detective accusing a criminal. The next two word sentence, “Temper, temper.” is again likely to raise a laugh with an audience depending on its pace and tone of delivery but it also introduces further ambiguity. Although the words are familiar to us as those used by an adult remonstrating with a naughty child, it seems that Armitage is inviting us to think of the mother’s temper who, it seems, in terms of the evidence presented, has falsely accused the child of negligence. The next sentence comically aggrandises the investigation into how a coat became dirty to the status of a parliamentary enquiry. “Questions / in the house” is the term used to describe proceedings in the House of Commons and reinforces the way the mother is blowing a trivial incident out of all proportion. The climax of the antagonism between mother and child is drawn using more well know phrases. The speaker is described as “seeing red” (line 11), while the crescendo of the row is “Blue murder”. The use of colour in them reminds us of the opposing parties in parliament. The Labour Party’s colour is red and the Conservative’s is blue. The mother has the power, though and the single word sentence, “Bed.” says a great deal about the way adults impose their wills on children. The reader is left wondering about the apparent injustice of the situation.

The child seems to be making a token gesture at running away from home, as so many children threaten after they feel a parent has dealt unfairly with them. Armitage, in an accurate observation humorously presents the child venturing “no further than the call box at the corner of the street” (line 13). This convincingly captures the simultaneous desire to flee mixed with the fear of doing it – just like a “free fall” parachutist, as well as wanting comfort from someone who might telephone. The child will be sixteen years older before he or she will have someone to talk to who will be able to help him or her face difficulty. Following this, Armitage again focuses upon the all too familiar scenario of a child who has been missed and being waited for by a “father figure” who “wants to set things straight”. It is noticeable that this is a “father figure” with the clear implication that the man might not be the child’s natural father. In wanting to “set things straight” he may want the child to see things in his and the mother’s way or perhaps to reconcile the child with the adults. Another alternative is that the words are a euphemism for a physical punishment. The fact the man is described “in silhouette” adds a gothic, sinister element which suggests malevolent intent. This reading is supported by the fact that the scene is set around “midnight”, the time when nasty things are traditionally abroad. This is the second “homecoming” described in the poem.

The concluding stanza returns to the jacket mentioned in the second. The garment becomes a metaphor that aligns parts of the body to features of the jacket. In this way, Armitage is sticking to the metaphorical technique whose method he sketched in the first line of the poem. Three metaphors in quick succession make this clear:

“These ribs are pleats or seams. These arms are sleeves.
These fingertips are buttons,...” (lines 18-19)

It appears that the speaker could be addressing his or her partner or mother and, perhaps, both. There is a universalised quality about what is being said because the jacket and its parts have become interchangeable with those of a person. The incident connected with the jacket, and the trust game are “two things…both at once”, brought together. Armitage seems to be saying that we need to able to rely on each other and be able to trust. Also, there is a sense that we can damage each other permanently by not trusting one another. The speaker invites the person he is addressing to “step backwards into it” as one might when a coat of jacket is being held for one but it also reminds us of the game of trust referred to in stanza one in which the subject must “free-fall / backwards”. The fact that the jacket “still fits” could mean that nothing has changed.