Power and Conflict Poetry Flashcards
Who wrote Charge of the Light Brigade?
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Who wrote Exposure?
Wilfred Owen
Who wrote Remains?
Simon Armitage
Who wrote Kamikaze?
Beatrice Garland
Who wrote Poppies?
Jane Weir
Who wrote War Photographer?
Carol Ann Duffy
Who wrote Checking Out Me History?
John Agard
Who wrote My Last Duchess?
Robert Browning
Who wrote Storm on the Island?
Seamus Heaney
Who wrote The Emigrée?
Carol Rumens
What is the structure of Kamikaze?
- Seven six-line stanzas
- No rhyme scheme
- Three full stops used in the entire poem: one at the end of the third person, one at the end of the first person and one at the end of the poem.
- First four stanzas in third person, last two in first, last two lines in third again (at the end of the final stanza)
(K) “Her father embarked…
“Her father embarked at sunrise/ with a flask of water, a samurai sword/ in the cockpit, a shaven head/ full of powerful incantations/ and enough fuel for a one-way/ journey into history”
- The ‘sunrise’ could represent the Japanese flag, as well as ironically symbolise hope and new beginnings
- The samurai sword could be alluding to Japanese culture
- The ‘powerful incantations’ could be a metaphor for propaganda
- The ‘journey into history’ is ironic; this pilot is not likely to be remembered or celebrated. It shows the manipulative nature of the culture.
What is the context behind Kamikaze?
- Published in 2007
- The Samurai (or Bushi) were the warriors of premodern Japan. Their main weapon and symbol was the sword.
- Extreme pressure was put on warriors during WW2 to embark on kamikaze missions.
- Other examples of this pressure is the idea of Seppuku: Japanese warriors would kill themselves rather than be taken in by enemies.
Symbols of patriotism in Kamikaze:
- “At sunrise”
- “A samurai sword”
- “Journey into history”
- “Strung out like bunting”
- “Like a huge flag, waved […] in a figure of eight”
- “The dark prince”
(K) “And sometimes, she said…
“And sometimes, she said, he must have wondered/ which had been the better way to die.”
- The internal conflict was never resolved by the end of the poem
- This could be denoting his inevitable death later in life, but alternatively could be suggesting that being disowned by your family was comparable to death, and he couldn’t decide which would be worse.
(K) “Only we children…
“Only we children still chattered and laughed// till gradually we too learned”
- This shows the extent of the culture and propaganda as influence; the children had not been exposed so much to this yet, therefore weren’t influenced to disown their father by it immediately.
(K) “And though he came back…
“And though he came back/ my mother never spoke again in his presence, nor did she meet his eyes/ and the neighbours too, they treated him/ as though he no longer existed,”
- By zooming out of the closed family scenario to the neighbours ignoring him as well demonstrates that it is the entire culture which disowns him, not just the family.
Symbols of nature in Kamikaze:
- “A green-blue translucent sea”
- “Arcing in swathes[…], dark shoals of fishes/ flashing silver as their bellies/ swivelled towards the sun”
- “Cloud-marked mackerel, black crabs, feathery prawns”
- “And once/ a tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous.”
Symbols of family in Kamikaze:
- “And remembered how he and his brothers/ waiting on the shore/ built cairns of pearl-grey pebbles/ to see whose withstood the longest”
- “Bringing their father’s boat safe// – yes, grandfather’s boat – safe/ to the shore”
- “[we too learned] that this was no longer the father we loved.”
Who wrote Ozymanidas?
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Describe the structure and form of ‘Ozymandias’.
- One stanza
- 14 lines: unconventional sonnet (14 lines, but not split into an octet and sestet with a volta between) could reflect Ozymandias’ self-love
- ABABA CDC EDE FEF rhyme scheme
- First person (although mostly in reported speech) - could show Ozymandias is nothing but a tale now, with no real validity or power
- Although the poem starts in the past tense, the reported speech is interestingly in present tense, emphasising how to this present day Ozymandias’ power is destroyed
(O) “I met a traveller…
“I met a traveller from an antique land/ Who said:”
- ‘Antique’ emphasises the age of the land itself and introduces the concept of much time having passed. It also links to the noun of an ‘antique’, something from a previous time, something maybe damaged or fragile
- The fact this is reported speech from a traveller could suggest that Ozymandias is now just a legend, with little credibility or influence, passed on by word of mouth.
(O) “Two… Half sunk…
“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/ Stand in the desert. […] Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown/ And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command/ Tell that its sculptor well those passions read”
- ‘Vast’ suggests something almost immeasurably big; boundless. This is hyperbolic, describing a statue which we can assume to be only so big. Perhaps this symbolises Ozymandias’ self-inflated image.
- The frequent caesura, enjambement and mixed up grammar (in ‘its sculptor well those passions read’) reinforce the imagery of a ‘shattered visage’, since the poem is, in this sense, also ‘shattered’.
- The fact that the sculptor read the passions ‘well’ implies that the ‘cold command’ is a known characteristic of Ozymandias, which has been represented accurately.
(O) “[the facial features/the passions] Which yet… The hand that…
“[the facial features/the passions] Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,/ The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed”
- The verb ‘mocked’ implies arrogance, and the verb ‘fed’ implies greed; we learn that these are also characteristics of Ozymandias.
- The fact that these things are described explicitly as ‘lifeless’ emphasises how dead Ozymandias’ legacy is.
(O) “My name is…
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/ Look upon my works, ye Mighty and despair!”
- The direct address of ‘ye Mighty’ is more provocative and threatening. Furthermore, the fact that the addressee is referred to as ‘Mighty’, especially as a proper noun, suggests he is of even greater power, for those who are already ‘Mighty’ must ‘despair’, be hopeless, in confrontation with his immense power. These ‘Mighty’ he refers to may be other enemy kings, as he previously referred to himself as ‘king of kings’.
- His ‘works’ represent statues as art representing status and power. This can be linked to how the same is done in ‘My Last Duchess’.
(O) “Nothing besides…
“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/ Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,/ The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
- The sentence fragment of ‘nothing beside remains’ both could symbolise the fragmented statue, as well as create space around this sentence, which could be arguably a kind of volta (although its not on line 9) to create a more dramatic effect.
- ‘Colossal wreck’ contrasts the powerful past self with the destroyed present statue.
- The zooming out of the sands which ‘stretch far away’ highlights the insignificance of Ozymandias now.
(P) “I pinned one onto…
“I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals,/ spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade/ of yellow bias binding around your blazer”
- The first person and direct address makes the poem feel intimate, symbolic of the maternal love as the mother pins a poppy onto her son’s blazer.
- The words ‘crimped’, ‘spasms’ and ‘disrupting’ all have negative connotations, which juxtaposes the positive connotations of a poppy. This leads us to reflect on the violence behind a poppy’s meaning.
- The vibrant colour imagery of ‘red’ and ‘yellow’ makes this memory feel also vibrant and real.
Examples of words to convey pain or injury in Poppies:
- ‘crimped’
- ‘spasms’
- ‘bandaged’
- ‘graze’
- ‘blackthorns’
(P) “All my words…
“All my words/ flattened, rolled, turned into felt,// slowly melting.”
- The metaphors used illustrate the surreality of the experience – the mother can’t really come to terms with what is happening; it’s almost like a dream.
What are the form and structure of the poem Poppies?
- Dramatic monologue
- Four stanzas, irregular length, but shorter, longer, longer, shorter
- First person
(P) “I was brave…
(P) “I was brave, as I walked/ with you, to the front door, threw/ it open, the world overflowing/ like a treasure chest. A split second/ and you were away, intoxicated.”
- A ‘treasure chest’ connotes something valuable, rich, promising, which contrasts with the reality of war. Paired with the adjective ‘intoxicated’, we can read this as being the propaganda which has convinced the son it is worth going to war.
- This is another example of metaphors conveying surreality.
- The ‘bravery’ of the mother makes us think of the bravery of soldiers in war – Weir may be trying to show us just how equally brave those must be who lose people to war, even if they do not fight in it.
- A door is a well-recognised symbol of opportunity.
(P) “I listened…
“I listened, hoping to hear/ your playground voice catching on the wind.”
- This shows that the mother only hears her son as a child (his ‘playground voice’) – the image of her son in her head is a younger one. This shows the impact of memory.
(P) “The dove pulled…
“The dove pulled freely against the sky”
- ‘Pulled freely’ is an oxymoron, showing the conflicting viewpoint of the mother.
- The ‘dove’ symbolises peace, which is ironic as the mother has just lost her son to war. The peace could be the apparent peace seen by the mother who is geographically far from the conflict, but the internal conflict of the oxymoron shows that this does not quite satisfy the mother.
What is the context behind Poppies?
- Jane Weir is not a mother who has lost a child to war herself.
- She often visited a churchyard with her son, where there too was a memorial, and you could hear the distant echo’s of children’s voices. This shows that although she is not writing from personal experience of someone who has lost people to war, she has extended her personal experience of being a mother to this environment.
- Weir’s own personal interest in textiles was used as metaphors to convey grief, she said.
- ‘Poppies is really a poem of remembrance’ - Weir
(TE) “There once…
“There once was a country… I left it as a child/ but my memory of it is sunlight-clear”
- ‘There once’ with an ellipsis give a nostalgic, fairy-tale-like tone
- The reoccurring ‘sunlight’ motif is introduced in the first sentence, building a positive tone
(TE) “It may be at… but I am…
“It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants,/ but I am branded by an impression of sunlight.”
- ‘May’ expresses doubt – she is still uncertain about the truth of her country, or refuses to believe it.
- The fact that the country is sick personifies it, and makes us pity it like we would an ill friend; we realise here the connection the emigrée feels towards her country.
- Furthermore, it is not the country’s fault: it is that of the ‘tyrants’.
- ‘Branded’ can have connotations of pain or torture: it means to imprint by burning. The fact that this is by ‘sunlight’ suggests that the metaphorical sunlight is so powerful that it has burned positive impressions into her. This positive and negative imagery in conjunction reflects the emotional conflict over the emigrée’s country.
(TE) “The white streets…
“The white streets of that city, the graceful slopes/ glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks/ and the frontiers rise between us, close like waves”
- ‘White’ is a symbol of purity – the opposite of that associated with war and corruption.
- The war imagery as the ‘frontiers rise between us’ separates the war from the ‘us’; the city. The speaker sees war not as a characteristic of the city, but a barrier keeping them apart.
(TE) “That child’s vocabulary…
“That child’s vocabulary I carried here/ like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar. […] It may now be a lie, banned by the state/ but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight.”
- The syntax of the sentence supports the meaning.
- Everything so far in this poem is about her childhood and how influential it was on her memory of the place; this demonstrates the power of memory, for it has overruled all negative things she’s heard since.
- The fact something can become a ‘lie’ (it is now, implied it wasn’t before) demeans the lie itself, as well as ‘may’ again expressing doubt. Are the people in control forcing an opinion upon the media?
- The gustatory imagery of tasting of sunlight now adds to the visual (‘sunlight-clear’) and tactile (‘branded by’) imagery to create a full sensory experience of positive imagery. Surrounding all this imagery of war and control: it can still not overpower her positive memories.
