Can you explain the poem Hitcher by Simon Armitage?
Okay, I’m not going to do it for you, but I will help you as this is one of my favourite poems in the Anthology. The first stanza of Simon Armitage’s poem ‘Hitcher’ reveals that the narrator has been off work for a while and is under threat of losing his job. He states that he had been ‘tired, under the weather’, not seriously ill. He doesn’t answer the phone calls from work, so messages are left, and he describes the ansaphone as ‘screaming’ that he will be fired if he produces another sick note. This is someone who seems unable to face the routine of everyday life. He himself hitches a lift to the place where he has a hired car parked, but gives us no information as to the purpose of his journey or his destination. The first line of stanza two abruptly introduces the hitcher: ‘I picked him up in Leeds’; the hitcher is only ever refered to as ‘him’ or ‘he’. We are told that he is travelling from east to west, ‘following the sun’, and the only possession he has with him is a toothbrush
