Drinking with Hitler

Drinking with Hitler

Owen Sheers

‘Skirrid Hill’ takes its origin from the Welsh, ‘Ysgirid Fawr’ which roughly translates as ‘shattered mountain’. ‘Skirrid’ can also mean ‘divorced or separated’ – the theme is the connotation of something broken down or split away — the natural deterioration and separation of people and things.

Therefore the collection deals with death, separation from one’s family, loss of communication, distancing in relationships. It also deals with the literal physical separation that takes place in the mountain itself; the diminished empathy between humans and nature.

The subject of the poem is ‘Hitler’ Hunzvi, the corrupt leader of the ‘Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’. This organisation fought in the Zimbabwe War of Independence. Humsvi later campaigned for benefits for the fighters, but the organisation descended into corruption. Humzvi embezzled huge amounts for himself, and was known for his arrogance and mistreatment of women.

The title is significant. We are not told if the name ‘Hitler’ was given to him by critcs of his brutality or if it was a name he had assumed himself. Whatever the facts, no decent person would wish to drink with him.

The poem is a monologue in which the poet describes his meeting with the man and the woman with him; his distaste for both is made clear. Although this poem would seem initially to be out of step with the themes of the collection, it does concern itself with those who are attracted to artificial and material things.

Structure
The poem comprises six stanzas of four lines each, known as quatrains. The voice is the poet’s, a free-verse monologue. There is no regular rhyme scheme.

Language and Imagery
Sheers tells his story with detachment, so the reader picks up his meaning by implication. The artificiality of the man and woman is implied through his display and talk; his mouth is described as a ‘CD selected with play pressed across his lip’. The woman is described in terms of her make-up, clothes and jewellery, an echo of the description of the dressed-up woman in ‘Show’ as ‘hocus-pocus’. Her ‘slow-blink’ mirrors bizarrely Sheers' slow-blink' in ‘Inheritance’.