Conflict Poetry

Question 1

Exposure quote - lack of patriotism

Answer 1

slowly our ghosts drag home

Question 2

Exposure quote - brutality of war

Answer 2

merciless iced east winds that knife us

Question 3

Exposure - futility of war

Answer 3

but nothing happens

Question 4

remains quote - guilt

Answer 4

probably armed, possibly not

Question 5

remains quote - brutality of war

Answer 5

all letting fly (euphemism)

Question 6

remains - ptsd

Answer 6

blood-shadow

Question 7

war photographer - guilt

Answer 7

ordinary pain

and they do not care

Question 8

war photographer - brutality of war

Answer 8

fields which don’t explode beneath the feet of running children

Question 9

war photographer - ptsd

Answer 9

he remembers the cries

Question 10

exposure - context

Answer 10

owen was a soldier in ww1, sent home for shell shock but returned to war, died fighting.

Question 11

remains - context

Answer 11

admits he interviewed an iraq soldier and tells his story, part of the not dead collection, speaker suffered from ptsd.

Question 12

war photographer - context

Answer 12

speaker is a war photographer, duffy is poet laureate, inspired by friend who was war photographer, ptsd.

Question 13

exposure - structure

Answer 13

ellipses ceasuras and repetition to give sense of ongoing waiting, half rhymes give unsettling feel, regular stanzas imitate repetitiveness of waiting.

Question 14

remains - structure

Answer 14

colloquial language for sense of realism, last stanza shorter giving dramatic end, imitates life being cut short, loose set of rhyme, often internal, shows an almost childish aspect to horror of war zone, half rhymes show irritation, wants it to make sense but it doesn’t.

Question 15

war photographer - structure

Answer 15

regular structure, giving order to chaos of war, each stanza represents a memory/moment in time that reflects the photographs he took.

Question 16

exposure - language device

Answer 16

mad gusts tugging on wire

personification that emphasises the power the weather has and how much pain it is causing

Question 17

remains - language device

Answer 17

on another occasion

in medias res feels like part of longer story, shows relentlessness of war.

Question 18

war photographer - language device

Answer 18

spools of suffering

sibilance emphasise phrase being sad, use of spools makes pain seem never ending and relentless

Question 19

kamikaze quote - futility

Answer 19

enough fuel for a one-way journey into history

Question 20

kamikaze quote - brutality/effects of war

Answer 20

they treated him as though he no longer existed

Question 21

kamikaze quote - regret

Answer 21

and sometimes, she said, he must have wondered which had been the better way to die

Question 22

kamikaze context

Answer 22

suicide planes which blew up onto enemies ships to cause damage, soldiers had shaven heads, expected to kill them selves with sword if they didn’t die on impact.

Question 23

kamikaze structure

Answer 23

use of no capital letter except in three places for emphasis, no rhymes give it tone of a story, pov shows she is making assumptions - not entirely sure. only two full stops to emphasise finality at certain points.

Question 24

kamikaze - language device

Answer 24

arcing in swathes like a huge flag

simile references to the patriotism the suicide pilots show