War Photographer Flashcards
“In his dark room he is finally alone”
The darkness and loneliness conveys his isolation - it helps the poem seem mote emotional - the adjective ‘dark’ may also be symbolix of the subject of his photos.
“Belfast, Beirut, Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass”
The plosive ‘B’ and ‘P’ sounds break the peaceful tone as if it where gunfire or explosions.
“He has a job to do,”
this short and simple sentence, we see that he is serious about his job and has to put his emotions aside.
“Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands”
Alliteration conveys dead bodies being handles and maybe even blood spilling. The fact that his hands are included may indicate that he believes he has blood on his hands or create imagery of his hands covered in the blood of others.
“his hands, which did not tremble then
but seem to now”
The irony here is that in the middle of the horrific action, his hands did not tremble but now in safety and peace, thoughts of the past make them tremble.
“Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel”
Regular pain which is insignificant to the horror of war is dispelled by simple things such as the weather whereas the pain of war is uncurable.
“To fields which don’t explode beneath the feet”
Comparing the rural landscape of farms which show comfort to the dangerous and deadly landscape in warzones.
“A strangers features
faintly start to twist before his eyes”
The stranger is made anonymous and the verb ‘twist’ implies extremely agonising pain.
“Half-formed ghost”
The ‘ghost’ is ‘half-formed’ because the photo is still developing but it could also be because his body has been mutilated.
“A hundred agonies in black and white”
An emotive metaphor to describe his photos. Adjective ‘hundreds’ stresses the severe amount of pain shared in war as well as ‘agonies’ which again shows terrible pain. Solidifies the suffering in the photos.
