LIT2 - Poetry - War Photographer Flashcards
Who wrote War Photographer? Give some context about the poem:
-Carol Ann Duffy
-describes the experience of war from an observer’s perspective, who was a photographer known by Duffy
-criticises how we don’t stop and think about the true horrors of war
Give 5 quotes for War Photographer:
-spools of suffering set out in ordered rows
-Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass
-he remembers the cries…and how the blood stained into foreign dust
-A hundred agonies in black-and-white from which his editor will pick out five or six for Sunday’s supplement
-the reader’s eyeballs prick with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers
spools of suffering set out in ordered rows
-the spool is a metaphor for the grief and pain that the photographer captures, and the sibilance establishes the negative mood to convey this
-the photographer imposes order on the chaos as a coping mechanism, and is only now beginning to truly understand the horrors of war
Don’t describe the context for this card
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass
-single word expressions of these inexpressible events are enough to provoke a strong image in the reader’s mind, and is lengthened by the caesura to force the reader to think about them
-biblical reference to Isaiah, to convey the idea that humans are alike, and that life is transient, emphasising how war is futile
Explain the context behind the following quote:
“Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh.”
-Belfast is known for the conflicts between the British government and the IRA (Irish Republican Army)
-Beirut, in Lebanon, is known for the brutal Lebanese Civil War
-Phnom Penh (capital of Cambodia) is known for the similarly brutal Cambodian Civil War, and the Cambodian genocide
he remembers the cries…and how the blood stained into foreign dust
vivid memories of “the man’s wife” which have metaphorically stained him, and the associated feelings will irreversibly stay with him forever
A hundred agonies in black-and-white from which his editor will pick out five or six for Sunday’s supplement
-hyperbolic number used to shock the reader, and metaphorically reflects how these agonies have been reduced to black and white and cannot express the true, full-colour reality of it
-criticises attitudes to war that doesn’t affect them
-reinforces the idea that the public is blind to the true reality of war, and how even the editor is choosing to put them in an irrelevant section of the newspaper rather than the front cover
the reader’s eyeballs prick with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers
-suggesting a mechanical response by using a disgusting noun “eyeball”
-verb “prick” refers to a fleeting and quickly-forgotten pain felt, emphasising the speed at which people will forget the atrocities of war
-internal rhyme of “tears…beers” which quickens the pace at which it is read, highlighting how the reader will simply continue nonchalantly with their busy life
Describe the structure of War Photographer:
-rigid structure of 4 6-lined stanzas with regular rhyme scheme (ABBCDDEFF…) reflects the photographer’s job - to impose order on the chaos of war
-unchanging structure emphasises how his efforts are futile, in that nothing changes no matter what he tries
