Poppies Flashcards
Themes (5)
- Effect of conflict: War Photographer: Memory and experience through someone not a soldier
- Loss and absence: Feelings of loss
- Memory: War Photographer: Memory and experience through someone not a soldier, Kamikaze
- Fear
- Individual experience
About
The speaker visits the grave of her son, remembering the day he left for fighting in WW1. The image of a poppy links her memory of him leaving and her memorialising his death.
Big ideas (3)
- Women and conflict – although it focuses on one mother, it reminds the reader that many people have been in similar situations in past wars
- Loss and absence – the poem gives a voice to those who are left behind when loved ones pass away
- Memory – the poem explores memories on both a personal level and a broader societal level
“crimped petals, spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer”
Memory, Loss and absence
Preparing his war-like uniform, although describing clothes, violent and war imagery is used: “crimped” = crushed, ”disrupting”, “blockade” – used to show the dangers of war
Colour imagery: “red” – blood, danger, suffering, “yellow” – caution, danger, pain – negative associations
Possibly foreboding this suffering, very common at war, as if the mother is warning her son of the dangers that
“sellotape bandaged around my hand”
Memory, Loss and absence
Caring for her son, preparing him to be sent off, Conveys her worries and fears of him being hurt
“Bandaged” – war imagery: injury or wound – may be foreshadowing, also shows that she finds him leaving painful and her caring for him is healing her pains temporarily
Still taking care of her child, domestic scene, she looks after him and has control until she loses it as he leaves
“I wanted to graze my nose across the tip of your nose”
Memory, Loss and absence
She wants to bring back his childhood where she has control over his decisions, this action is done by a far younger child who she has complete control over and as the child ages she loses this gradually.
She is missing affection from him and her intimacy with him as a child.
“I resisted the impulse to run my fingers through the gelled blackthorns of your hair”
Memory, Loss and absence
Contrast between 1. She wants to be affectionate as if he was younger and 2. He now is older and makes his own decisions about how he looks and has spiky, gelled hair.
“Resisted” and “impulse” shows that her care for him is natural and she will always have her motherly
“blackthorns” are a religious reference to Jesus Christ and Christianity, he wore a crown of blackthorns when he died, this shows her fears that her son will become a figure of sacrifice and die in the war
“all my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt, slowly melting”
Memory, Loss and absence
“Felt” = child’s play, she remembers his childhood when they played together, but it also sticks to itself and is fuzzy just as she is struggling to get her words out and is stuttering from her pain and emotions
“Melting” = wearing away and disappearing as if her words won’t come out but also dissolved, emotion of softening into tears as she collapses under the intensity of her fears for him and saying goodbye
“a split second and you were away, intoxicated”
Effect of conflict, Memory, Loss and absence
“Intoxicated” = 1. Lots of new opportunity, fortune through respect and honour in the military, earning a living and being independent, 2. “Toxic” through propaganda, bewitched by it all and under and influence of this greatness when in reality he may not return but he doesn’t believe this harsh reality
“the world overflowing like a treasure chest, released a song-bird from its cage”
Memory, Loss and absence, Fear
“World overflowing” – dramatic, final goodbye, peak of all emotion. “Like a treasure chest” Simile, New opportunities await, valuable, precious, exciting, wants to open this chest and explore his new independence, bitter-sweet moment for the pair as one is in pain and the other can’t wait to go.
“Released a song bird from its cage”: “Song bird” = son, ready to provide others with light and assistance as the song bird does, “cage” = mothers care and control holding him back from independence
Extended metaphor of clothing “tucks, darts, pleats”, “upturned collar”, “blazer”
Memory, Loss and absence
- Symbol of care for her son, mothers’ duty to make sure sons look clean and smart, patch up clothes
- When she goes to the church after he leaves she wears no outer layers “without a winter coat…scarf, gloves” as when her son leaves she seems to stop caring for herself as she has no motive in contrast to the thorough preparations for her son in stanza 1. This also shows she has a deep need to follow the dove and get to the war memorial.
- Clothing was a common theme between her and her son and when he leaves she loses this common theme so doesn’t keep it up
In stanza 3 her emotions are in disarray, the reference to darts and pleats show she is ‘unsticking’ and falling apart, she doesn’t have to hold it in for her son any more and is clearly struggling.
“like a wishbone”
- It is a symbol of luck so she is wishing for her son’s safety and happiness or he has already passed
- She is suffering internally and wishing for another fate where her son has not died
- A wishbone is fragile, representing the fragility of life both her son at war and her fragility emotionally
- Once broken it can never be repaired just as when her son died it left her ruined, he can’t come back
“hear your playground voice catching on the ground”
Memory, Loss and absence
Poignant, emotionally touching, memories are all she has to hold on to, especially for him as a child, nostalgia
Regret that he has to grow up, use of senses “hear”, “voice” emphasise she cannot touch or hear him anymore
Structure (4)
- Free verse enables the poem to be seen as a memory poem or recollection of memories with her son
- Switches tenses from past to present to future as her mind is wandering and constantly switching between memories of his childhood, him leaving in the present and hoping for his safety in the future
- The use of caesuras throughout all stanzas e.g. lines 3,11,14,16, 18, 21, 34 enable the pause to focus on memory = collecting thoughts, suggests the inner emotion of the speaker who is trying to remain calm and composed in front of her son.
- The combination of breaks within the lines, enjambment and sibilance convey the clear struggle of the speaker to contain her emotions in front of her son
Context (5)
- Weir is a contemporary poet exploring the legacy of WWI.
- Poppies were the only thing to grow on the battlefields after the war. Red is symbolic of bloodshed
- When the poem was written British soldiers were still dying in Afghanistan and Iraq and so the purpose of the poem was to convey the suffering caused by their deaths
- She wrote from the perspective of a woman because usually poems about war are about men
- As a mother of boys she conveyed how she would feel if they left for war
