Mametz Wood

Question 1

Who was the poet? And when were they born?

Answer 1

-Owen Sheers (1974+)

Question 2

CONTEXT

Why did Owen Sheers write Mametz wood?(3)

Answer 2

• He went to the battlefield in northern France
• Saw the ground with barbed wire and shell holes
• He saw a photo of the dead bodies

Question 3

What is Mametz Wood?(4)

Answer 3

• Location during the battle of the Somme
• Welsh Unit
• 4,000 casulties
• 60 dead

Question 4

What did the Guardian say about Mametz Wood?

Answer 4

“the confident use of internal and sprung rhymes produces an easy lyricism, while his rhythms are wonderfully dextrous”,

Question 5

STRUCTURE

What does the first and last stanza suggest?

Answer 5

• first stanza-past – ‘for years afterwards’ emphasises loss ‘wasted young’;
• final stanza- tribute to singing Welsh voices - ‘ the notes they had sung’ form of release ‘notes…slipped from their absent tongues’.

Question 6

STRUCTURE

What does the regular tercet mimic?

Answer 6

-mimic soldiers’ controlled advancement,

Question 7

STRUSTRE

What does the free verse imply?(2)

Answer 7

• captures the unforeseen immensity of the battle,

- belated sense of recognition of what the men achieved.

Question 8

STRUCTURE

What does the Three-line stanzas, varied length of lines show?

Answer 8

• (eg. lines 4 and 12) the longer lines break up the neat form of the poem, suggesting the uneven ploughed field or the chits of bone rising out of the ground.

Question 9

Whats your opening sentence?

Answer 9

In the poem Mamets Woods by Owen Sheers he uses imagery to show how death in the First World War has been literally and metaphorically buried.

Question 10

How does Sheers use contrast to show how difficult it is for us to think back to the horror the soldiers experienced?

Answer 10

he machine guns are ’nesting’ like birds, the men in their graves look like they are dancing (line 15).

Question 11

STRUCTURE

How does He uses the structure of the poem to separate the real people from the clods of bone and earth and flint?

Answer 11

stanzas about the earth, then about the bone and then finally (in stanzas 3, 6 and 7) about the men the bones once were.

Question 12

ANALYSIS

Where is the internal rhyming? And what does it imply?(4)

Answer 12

• ‘farmers found’ , ’earth stands sentinel’, ’heads tilted back at an angle’
• Subtle use of sound
• transforms the poem into a hymn to the dead
• Builds towards the final image: the unearthed bones that appear to be singing.

Question 13

ANALYSIS

Where does the alliteratively arresting imagery echoes the sound of gunfire and battlefield destruction?(4)

Answer 13

• he harsh, plosive ‘b’ of ’blades’ and ’back’
• ’blade’, ’blown’
• ’broken bird’s egg’,
• next stanza ’breaking blue’.