Poetry Flashcards by Matthew Powell

War Photographer
A hundred agonies in black and white of which his editor picked 5 or 6

Agonies-abstract noun, the agonies of the people suffering
100s of agonies of everyday people for nothing and there pain isn’t fully show to the world
Black and white-connotes death
So many untold stories

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War Photographer
Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows

Sibilance
Uneasy tone
Ordered rows-connotes graveyard

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War Photographer
He remembers the cries

PTSD shows the affect of war on all people not just soldiers and how they are now changed for the rest of life unable to unsee the horrors of war
Trauma
Cries-innocence of a baby and the horror of war contrasting

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War Photographer
They don’t care

Regular people don’t care as it is not there pain and it shows the ignorance of humans and how we don’t care for are fellow man

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Remains
Probably armed possibly not

Constantly reliving the moment and the possibility of him killing an innocent person
Uncertainty of what he did was right or not

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Remains
His bloody life in my bloody hands

Sibilance-sinister memory
He has taken the blame for the murder and has accepted responsibility
My-pronoun suggests his acceptance and not blaming others

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Remains
It rips through his life I see broad daylight on the otherside

It-personifieds the bullets
Over fired his gun and may has over exstended his power
I-blames himself

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Remains
The drink and the drugs wont flush him out

Representative of all soldiers after war and how they turn to addiction
Flush-trying to rid of the memory
And- repetition of substance abuce

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Remains
Tosses his gutd back into his body

Metaphot got sickness
Tosses-colloquial language
Soldiers have to become emotionally dead to fight in wars

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Ozymandias
Snear of cold command

Rulers have no sympathy for thos societly lower than them
Cold command-alliteration emphasises the emotionlessnes of the ruler and how they only want power

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Ozymandias
Look on my works ye mighty and despair

Hubris
My works-he owns work created for him and not by him like how he owns his land
Ironic as statue is no longer mighty and he has lost all his power

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Ozymandias
The hand that mocked them

Jing mocked his people
No love for his fellow man
Metaphor and juxtoposition
He is mocking those poorer than him
He gives nothing to his people

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Ozymandias
Half sunk a shattered vissage

Statue is hard to recognise
Nature has destroyed his statue
Nature is infinitley mor powerful than mans

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Expossure
For the love of god seems dying

Metaphor the soldiers are loosing there faith
War is an attack on faith
Horrors they have seen have them questioning there faith

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Expossure
Our brains ache in the merciless iced east winds that knive us

Personification of wnd
Nature is the biggest enemy and a common enemy
Knives-personification constant barrache of poor weather conditions

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Expossure
But nothing happens

Constant waiting with no fighting
Waiting for an attack
Poet wants to end the war buit there is no end as war is endless

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Charge of the light brigade
Into to the vally of death rode the six hundred

Biblical refference
600 was a group in the army
Riding into a trap as they where missinformed by leaders

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Charge of the light brigade
Theirs not to make reply
Theirs not to reson why
Theis but to do and die

Invevitable death
Triplet
They didnt fight for reason they fought under command like they where under the control of the leaders

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Charge of the light brigade
They that had fought so well Come thro’ the jaws of death Back from the mouth of hell

Past tense
Subverting expectations
Fought valliently but they all died because of the fault of those in charge missinforming them

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Kamikaze
Dark shoal of fishes flashing silver as rheir bellies swivelled towards the son

Fish-represent freedom
Every cloud has a silver lining
Dark places have a bright horizon

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Kamikaze
This was no longer the farther we loved

War has broken a family
No longer-cus he didnt go through with it
Loved-past tense convenced by society not to love him

Kamikaze
A shaven head full of powerful incantations

Filled with the propaganda from the government
Young men thought they were heros but to the government they were just bodies

Bayonnet charge
The patriotic tear that brimmed in his eye

Metaphor
Fighting for a country that doesnt care about him

Bayonnet charge
Bullets smacking through the belly of the air

People being shot
Metaphor
Personifies the air
The greusumness of killing someone

Bayonnet charge He lugged a rifle nub as a smashed arm

Similie showing brutality of injuries of war Personification The rifle has become a part of him Effort to carry the rifle

Bayonnet charge King honor human dignity ecetra dropped like luxuries

Dehumanised by war No reason to live any more His basic human beliefs have gone

Poppies I was brave as I walked with you to the front door

Reminising its in past tense its one of her last memories with her son Child has become an adult Different types of bravery

Poppies Released a song bird from its cage

Released-verb She is letting her son go into the world and make his own way Song-soldier has gone to make his own identity Song bird-represents freedom and peace which contrasts with the soldier at war

Poppies Spasms of paper red disrupting a blockade

Metaphor for bullets firing and blood Connotations of violence

Prelude Troubled pleasure

Oxymoron Highlights the conflicting feelings of excitement and unease

Prelude When from behind that craggy steep till then the horizons bound

Future is appearing to us Horizion=death and its there for everyone

Prelude No pleasant images of trees of sea or sky no colours of green fields

Connotations of nature Hes alone with his thoughts and in awe of the vastness of nature and how hes escaped it

Prelude Went heaving through the water like a swan

Volta Swan-beautiful creature and is in the innocent bliss of natures beauty Light and care free

Prelude A huge peak black and huge

In awe of the vastness of nature and its beauty and its control over humans but has realised how small of a person he actually is

Chekin out me history Never tell me

Those in charge of the education system refrain from teaching him about his history Refuse to show him his own story

Chekin out me history Dem tell me

Dictating what he is tought about his own history Patois language Someone else is still controlling his history

Chekin out me history Dem tell me bout Columbus and 1492 but what happened to de Caribs and de Arawaks too

European history is still celebrated over the natives history Native history is lost and ignored due to the little teachings of there history

Chekin out me history Florence nighting gale Mary seacole

Both improved nursing but the eurapons selected for only nightingale to be remembered because she was white

London The mind forged manicales

Metaphor the working class people who have been brain washed into working for the rich Metaphor for church and how it needs to have a revolution

London In every cry of every man in every infants cry of fear

Repetition It effects all both children and adults Emphasises the oppression of the city

London Chartered streets

Repeated through the poem Planned course People own the streets of London and the poor have to rent it from the rich

London And the hapless soldiers sigh runs in blood down palace wall

Murder connotations Blood on kings hands for ordering murders Anti colonial

My last duchess I gave commands

Controlling imagery of him ordering his wife like a animal Back then men owned there wives and marriage often seen as a transaction for farthers to gain more societal power

My last duchess Then all smiles stopped together

Implies he killed her He was jealous and he thought she was undermining him so he murdered her

My last duchess They would ask me if they durst How such a glance came there

Signs of authority and power and he holds his authorative power above others They would dare question his authority

My last duchess A heart how shall I say too soon made glas

She liked everyman she saw Mysoginistic view He accused her of cheating on him

Storm on the island We are prepared

We- plural pronoun suggests community and a statement of defiance Ready to face the force of nature

Storm on the island Spits like a tame cat turned savage

Simile something ur used too has turned against you may refer to the way some politiciansd lie to there people Weather is violent and vindictive

Storm on the island This wizened earth has never troubled us with hay

Shriviled with age No food Enjambment shows the consitency of each year having no food Refers to the potato famine

Tissue Might flt our lives like paper kites

Metaphor for our lives Delicate and out of control

Tissue Raise a structure never meant to last

Metaphor for the rise of hummanity Nobody is permenant

Poppies I listned hoping to hear yor playground voice catching on the wind

metaphor chasing a memory Her last link to his childhood She wants him to return safe and still be her child