Five Ways to Kill a Man Edwin Brock

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.

You can make him carry a plank of wood
to the top of a hill and nail him to it.
To do this properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a length of steel,

shaped and chased in a traditional way,
and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
But for this you need white horses,
English trees, men with bows and arrows,
at least two flags, a prince, and a
castle to hold your banquet in.

Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind

allows, blow gas at him. But then you need
a mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
and some round hats made of steel.

In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly

miles above your victim and dispose of him by
pressing one small switch. All you then
require is an ocean to separate you, two
systems of government, a nation's scientists,
several factories, a psychopath and
land that no-one needs for several years.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways to kill a man.

Simpler, direct, and much more neat is to see
that he is living somewhere in the middle
of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

Explain what you think are the central messages in this poem. Refer to the poem.
I think one of the central messages in this poem is that humanity has been vicious
and cruel since the start. Right down through the ages we have been killing
eachother, and then developing more ways to kill eachother and using them instead.
The poet uses examples from throughout our timeline – the crucifiction, the middle
ages, world war one and world war two with its atomic bomb. All we ever do is hurt
others.
Another message to befound in this poem is that life in modern times is horrible. It
would be better to kill a man in one of the cruel manners mentioned in the poem
than to leave someone in modern times, for that is the most cruel torture possible:
“These are, as I began, cumbersome ways to kill a man.
Simpler, direct, and much more neat is to see
that he is living somewhere in the middle
of the twentieth century, and leave him there”

Can you relate to the central message in this poem?

I think that the central message in this poem is true. The world today is a very harsh
and difficult place to live in. you just have to turn on the radio or the television and
you’ll hear another tragic tale of death, war and poverty.
The economic climate is in a ridiculous state. We’ve had to borrow billions of
euros to try and dig ourselves out of the trouble we’ve got ourselves in, and that is a
ridiculous state to be in.
Every day we hear tales of new wars, or old wars getting worse. North Korea
and South Korea are fighting relentlessly in their most vicious dispute in a very long
time.
People are being killed by man and disease (or a combination of both) all the
time, and unless the person is famous, nobody seems to care. It doesn’t affect them
so it’s somebody else’s problem.
However, though life is hard in modern times, it is perhaps an exaggeration to
compare it to the world wars or the middle ages. Our life is difficult, but it has not yet
become fatal.

Themes:
• Modern life (trials)
• Cruelty of humanity throughout history
• Thought-provoking
• Unusual/original/fresh perspective
• Humour – wry/black/dark humour
• A poem which you can relate to
• War
• Conflict

Very loose notes – you’ll have to put a bit more into your answers, but these should
be most of the basics you need to know.