Mametz Wood - Owen Sheers Flashcards
‘Tended’
‘Tended the land back into itself’
The farmers tend to the land as if it had been wounded too and the farmers are nursing it back to recovery
‘Chit’
‘A chit of bone’
Represents fragments of bone and are the receipts soldiers had to pay for courage. Chit also means young girl referring to how the soldiers died so young
‘Egg’
‘Blown and broken bird’s egg of a skull’
The fragility of the skull is innocent like a birds egg. “Blown egg” are images of holes created in the skull by bullets. Egg also represents the idea of life barely started before being ended. All reinforced by plosive “d’s”
“Foreign body”
‘like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin’
An image of healing suggests a process of uncovering an overlooked past can help rehabilitate the dead in the minds of the living by providing the dead a voice they never had detoxifying
“Slipped”
“Slipped from their absent tongues”
A final mention to the futile death and suffering of Welsh soldiers are given proper recognition and the songs they had sung can now be spoken to the living as the poem speaks to the reader
