Mametz Wood Flashcards
What is it about?
Describes how farmers in France find the bodies of soldiers who where killed in WW1 when they where ploughing their field
Who is the poet?
Owen Sheers
What are the themes
Nature Memories Decay Forgotten Death Identity War
What is the structure
3 line stanzas- almost like layers. Each verse has its own focus. No real rhyme scheme but alliteration holds the poem together. Enjambment, only 5 sentences in the whole poem
‘for the years afterwards the farmers found them’
Lots of them nameless. Hard to forget the war- it keeps resurfacing. Emphasising how deadly the battle was
‘The wasted young’
Lives cut short unnecessarily. Lost their lives before they had really started living
‘Broken bird’s egg’
Alliteration. Metaphors emphasise how fragile and precious the human body is.
‘In boots that outlasted them’
Boots where stronger than them- sad/ unnatural.
‘Broken mosaic of bone linked arm in arm’
Buried closely like brothers. Stayed together as a team until death
