Mametz Wood, Owen Shears

Question 1

“Mametz Wood”

Answer 1

Title could foreground themes of Place, War and Death.

Question 2

The poem opens with the phrase “For years afterwards…”

Answer 2

Which suggests that the horror of war, and
this particular tragedy still affects us.

Question 3

The language, such as “china plate”, “broken bird’s egg of a skull”

Answer 3

The broken “mosaic of bone” used
suggests that the soldiers were vulnerable and fragile.

Question 4

“socketed heads tilted back at an angle”

Answer 4

Brutally visualises the moment the men were shot and their screams of pain.

Question 5

Final words – “their absent tongues”

Answer 5

Suggests that the soldiers have finally found a voice. The final stanza combines both elements of the alternating stanzas and suggests that the poem is about offering redemption or justice, both for the dead and the land.

Question 6

Structure

Answer 6

Long sentences and frequent use of enjambment and caesura help to create a slow, reflective tone.
Neat parallel lines could represent the remians of the soldiers.