Poppies by Jane Weir

Question 1

The poem in a nutshell…

Answer 1

The poem is about the nature of grief. The speaker is a mother who is speaking directly to her son who has gone off to the war which she struggles to come to terms with. The poem demonstrates the inner emotion of a narrator who is trying to remain calm and composed but is breaking with sadness inside.

Question 2

Context

Answer 2

 Jane Weir, born in 1963, grew up in Italy and Northern England, with an English mother and an
Italian father. She has continued to absorb different cultural experiences throughout her life, also
living in Northern Ireland during the troubled 1980s.

The poem is set in the present day but reaches right back to the beginning of the Poppy Day
tradition. Armistice Sunday began as a way of marking the end of the First World War in 1918. It
was set up so people could remember the hundreds and thousands of ordinary men who had been
killed in the First World War. Today, the event is used to remember soldiers of all wars who have
died since then.

When Poppies was written, British soldiers were still dying in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a way
of trying to understand the suffering that deaths caused, the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy asked a
number of writers to compose poems, including Jane Weir.

Question 3

I wanted to graze my nose across the tip of
your nose, play at being Eskimos like we did when
you were little

Answer 3

The speaker is longing for her son to be a child again. She wants to nurture him and protect hum like she did when he was a child. However, this is contrasted with harsh reality that he is going off to war and she realises the risks that he may encounter.

Question 4

After you’d gone I went into your bedroom,

released a song bird from its cage

Answer 4

The “song bird” could be a metaphor for the mother’s
emotions. When he is out of sight, she can finally express her true feelings and the hurt/worry that she is feeling. It is evident that she is in distress when he leaves to go to war.

Question 5

I traced the inscriptions on the war memorial,

leaned against it like a wishbone.

Answer 5

This quotation serves as a reminder of the risks the
speaker’s son faces. The reference to a “wishbone”
demonstrates that the mother is vulnerable and fragile.

Question 6

Aspects of Power or Conflict

Answer 6

Conflict of the mother’s feelings towards her son growing up

The grief of those left behind when a loved-one is killed in war.

Motherhood; the impulse to protect a grown son or daughter; to always view them in her mind
as a child.

Question 7

Poems that can be linked

Answer 7

Kamikaze

Exposure