Punk Pantoum

This poem is a representation of the rebellion that took place during the Punk Movement in the 1970's. Punk Rock, which originated from garage rock, consisted of short, hard-edged, fast music, that targeted politics, and jabs at capitalism, made popular by bands such as The Clash, The Sex Pistols, and the Ramones. This Movement not only consisted of a new type of music, but also a whole new style, which in in itself rebelled against the normal dress code of that particular era. 

This Poem refers to this movement, because it represents a person who is rebelling against society, rebelling against their own lives, and the way they were raised. Not only is this speaker rebelling, but he is encouraging his lover to rebel with him. In the first stanza the speaker states 

"Tonight I'll walk the razor along your throat

You'll wear blood jewels and last week's ochre bruise"

Causing pain to themselves is the type of rebellion that they are involved in, it is how they release the stress that society has placed on them. Committing suicide would be the ultimate stance against politics, and everything they are against. They connect their rebellion with the music, and drugs, two things that were very common during these times. In The Velvet Undergrounds song Heroin, released in 1967, there are several statements that connect drugs to freeing people from society, and what has become of it for example; 

"I really don't care anymore 

About all the Jim-Jim's in this town

And all the Politicians makin' crazy sounds 

And everybody puttin' everybody else down

And all the dead bodies piled up in mounds" 

The message becomes clear during the lines above in this song, people resort to heroin and hurting themselves as away to free themselves from current events.

The Poem is a pantoum, because it is sending a message. In order to get the reader to truly understand what is happening the poem must repeat itself. The repetition of the razor walking across the speaker, and his lover neck, allows the readers to understand how far people during this movement would go in order to rebel against society. This poem, like many songs created history. Although politics, and society are still quite corrupted, the punk movement aloud people to take charge of music, style, and eventually their own personal opinion. The speaker no longer wants to be the man that he was raised to be, he wants to release himself from that unfortunate lifestyle, and inflicting pain on himself, and his lover is what will free him from that lifestyle.