Poppies

Question 1

There is strong feelings of what apparent throughout the poem?

Answer 1

Sadness.

Anger.

Question 2

What time of war poem is it?

Answer 2

Contemporary war poem.

Not about a specific conflict/war.

Question 3

What is the poem about?

Answer 3

A mothers experience of loss and pain.

Different perspective of war.

Question 4

What language techniques are evident throughout the poem?

Answer 4

Imagery.
Alliteration.
Simile.

Question 5

What structure techniques are evident throughout the poem?

Answer 5

1st person narration.
No rhyme.
Enjambment.

Question 6

What type of imagery is there?

Answer 6

Clothing.
Vulnerability.
Everyday objects.

Question 7

The poem focuses on textiles like…

Answer 7

Touch.

Richly textured poem.

Question 8

No rhyme suggests what?

Answer 8

Shows inability to control emotions and thoughts.

Question 9

Initially the poem appears to be…

Answer 9

clearly structured, but caesuras creates a sense that the narrator is not entirely calm.

Question 10

‘Three days before Armistice Sunday’…

Answer 10

Clear sense of time.
Universal.
Link to remembrance day.

Question 11

‘Before you left’…

Answer 11

Hope that he is alive, directly addressing him.

Question 12

‘Spasms’…

Answer 12

Harsh and violent.

Question 13

‘Blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer’…

Answer 13

Alliteration.

Bold brave textures are described foreshadowing death.

Question 14

‘Sellotape bandaged around my hand’…

Answer 14

Motherly image.

Contrasts with the images of injuries on the battlefield.

Question 15

‘Smoothed down your shirt’s upturned collar’…

Answer 15

Emphasises physical closeness between mother/son.

Question 16

‘Steeled the softening of my face’…

Answer 16

Alliteration highlights mothers bravery ability to stay strong for son.

Question 17

‘Play at being Eskimos like we did when you were little’…

Answer 17

Sentimental images of childhood make poem more poignant.

Question 18

‘All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt’…

Answer 18

Like Belfast Confetti, communication can fail us in time of conflict.

Question 19

‘Slowly melting’…

Answer 19

Already a sense of loss.

Question 20

‘I was brave’…

Answer 20

Sense of bereavement.

Preparing for loss.

Question 21

‘Threw it open, the world overflowing like a treasure chest’…

Answer 21

Simile.

Open door to rest of the world.

Question 22

‘After you’d gone’…

Answer 22

Deliberately ambiguous.

‘Gone’ to war or death.

Question 23

‘Released a song bird from its cage’…

Answer 23

Metaphor.

Letting her son be free.

Question 24

‘And this is where it has lead me’…

Answer 24

Brings narrator to the present time tense.

Question 25

‘A winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves’…

Answer 25

Images of vulnerability, links back to how she helped him with his military uniform and clothing as a child.

Question 26

‘On reaching the top of the hill’…

Answer 26

Literal hill to war memorial but metaphorically describes her journey.

Question 27

‘Wishbone’…

Answer 27

Simile to highlight fragile and femur.

Question 28

‘The dove pulled freely against the sky’…

Answer 28

Symbolically love, death, pain.

Question 29

‘I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind’…

Answer 29

Speaks to her son again.

Closing lines = extreme sadness.

Question 30

The mother i suspended between what?

Answer 30

Past and present.