Power and Conflict Poetry Flashcards
Remains by Simon Armitage
Key Ideas & Context
Key Ideas: Psychological suffering - even after conflict is over.
Guardsman Tromans - Iraq 2003. PTSD.
‘The Not Dead’
Context: Highlights the violence that people experience, mental suffering.
‘poems of survivors - the damaged, exhausted men’
Wanted to increase awareness about the horrors of the war.
Remains by Simon Armitage
Language
- Metaphor ‘I see every round as it rips through his life.’ - taking his soul, destroying his family, his future. Last effects of war.
- Brutal imagery: ‘tosses his guts back into his body’ ‘carted off in the back of a lorry’ - emotionless, negligent nature of war. Disturbing image. Reduction of humanity into waste/cattle. Rhyme emphasises the routine (exposed to death and violence, lost respect and value for life)
- Gruesome imagery: ‘sort of inside out’ ‘image of agony’ - transition from colloquial to emotional language - confessional tone, process of reliving memories.
Remains by Simon Armitage
Form & Structure
- Enjambment and caesura - tension, builds up violent imagery, unable to separate past events, cause past to flow into present. Haunted by past. Moment will continue (influence his future)
‘Then I’m home on leave.’ - should be the end of his suffering. This isn’t the case. VOLTA (false)
2.Shift of blame - ‘somebody else and somebody else’ avoids the blame –> towards the end, he accepts his role and responsibility.
- Motif of blood - represents guilt/remorse.
- Opens in media res. Mirrors confusion of war, not mentally prepared. ‘probably armed, possibly not’ - loss of innocence, loss of peace (interrupts his peace)
Exposure by Wilfred Owen
Key Ideas & Context
Key ideas : the speaker describes the terrifying experience of a night in the trenches in the first world war. The poem shows the trauma experienced by soldiers in the trenches.
Context:Poem was written in 19 12, while Owen was fighting in the trenches, which greatly adds to its authenticity, since it is written by an actual soldier in the midst of conflict. In contemporary bitten, war was romanticised to the point where it had gained mythical status, this was reflected in most other old war poetry which focused on the honour of fighting. Owen dispelled “the old lie’ and exposed the horrors of war.
Exposure by Wilfred Owen
Language
- Personification of mother nature: ‘the merciless iced east winds that knive us…’ - a foe as deadly as the Germans. Weather is the enemy, takes no prisoners. Harsh conditions. Ellipsis (no ultimate good outcome from war, relentless nature of war) Sibilance (creates hissing/slicing sound of the wind)
- Refrain: ‘but nothing happens’ - monotony of war, waiting for the enemy, action.
- Cold imagery: ‘pale flakes with fingering stealth’ frost’ ‘all their eyes are ice’ - eyes are window to the soul, destroyed their souls, left them soulless.
Exposure by Wilfred Owen
Form & Structure
1.Cyclical structure - nothing happened on the front line, war will continue (futile), soldiers will continue to die, despite suffering they are achieving nothing.
- Repetition of questions - unnecessary wars/decisions made by those in power. Owen is questioning the purpose of war.
- Caesura - ‘pause over half known faces.’ - burying the dead, was the war worth it?, pause for respect.
- ‘Knive us’/’Nervous’ - half rhyme. Leaves the reader dissatisfied, war is not how it should be. Half rhyme barely holds the poem together - mirrors the mental state of the soldiers (holding onto hope)
Poppies by Jane Weir
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Poppies by Jane Weir
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Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Bayonet Charge by Ted Hughes
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War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy
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War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy
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Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland
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Key ideas: poem explores a daughters reflection on her connection and relationship with her father, who was a kamikaze (suicide pilot) who failed his mission and returned home prematurely). It also describes her fathers profound experience of nature, nature is celebrated as a beautiful and magnificent entity, a great power in the poem which has immense influence over man. The poem then explores how the father was shunned by his family once he had returned, as a result of their devotion to patriotic values over family values. The poem also explores the futility of avoiding a fate set out for you by an authority or government.
Context: Written in the backdrop of world war 2, littered with references to patriotism as patriotism was a core part of Japanese culture
Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland
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1.Nature: “green blue translucent sea” - connotations of peace and tranquility, colour imagery illustrates the uniqueness of nature, the pilot refuses to deny others and himself the opportunity to enjoy such beauty. Moreover, this conveys hoe the true power of nature lies within its eternal beauty, an attribute so powerful that it can hypnotise someone on the verge of death to realise the value of the experience of life. fish swum “ in a figure of eight” this numerical symbolism is used to represent infinity, and in turn the infinite nature of nature. Nature is forever lasting in comparison to the transience of mankind.This causes the pilot to re evaluate his mission, he comes to the realisation that human honour and sacrifice will be forgotten.
2.Patriotism - patriotic imagery is rife throughout the poem and is emblematic of the grasp of authoritarian powers over ordinary people and their lives. “her father embarked at sunrise” raider is reminded that Japan is the land of the rising sun. The speaker sees patriotism and her love for her country inextricably linked to nature, fish are like a “huge flag”. Similie shows that they are all indoctrinated by Japanese culture and societal norms. This illustrates to reader how patriotism is so powerful and can control how a person acts and how they choose to die. “ flask of water,samurai sword, shaven head full of powerful incantations” these rituals are symbolic of a traditional samurai who would have devoted his life to his country. But it is ironic as the pilot got against the bushido ( samurai code of honour) when he retreats from battle, and thus rejects patriotism.
- father is shunned/ ostracised by his family: “nor did she meet his eyes” any love which the wife had for husbands dissolved the moment he betrayed Japan. Link to eyes being the window to the soul, the wife may believe her husbands soul is corrupted and impure after his act of betrayal, so she refuses to interact with him. This depicts a sadistic image of the pilots life and the lives of soldiers by extension, men who endure physical pain and then are subsequently met with psycological misunderstanding from society.
“ to live as though he had never returned”, family of pilot disregard that he even exists, as they wish that he would’ve died at battle, but instead to reconcile the fact that he did not, they choose to replicate this sense of loss within their own minds and day to day interactions. “no longer the father we loved” the foundations of the family’s love for their father are clearly built upon foundations of honour and loyalty to Japan, there is no such thing as unconditional love for them, love is something that must be meant. Upon closer inspection we can see the quote strips the father of his masculine identity, he was “no longer” a “father”, serves to illustrate how the pilot had undermined the patriarchal expectations which were held of him, and as a result he loses his very identity of manhood.
Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland
Form & Structure
1.The whole poem is conveyed by his daughter, and she has no certainty as to why her father returned home. This illustrates how the pilot was denied any chance to express his premature return from war by his family.
2.Poem is structure into tightly controlled six line stanzas, which perhaps reflects the oder and obedience expected of a soldier. However this structure is juxtaposed and undermined by the free verse and enjambment. The attempt of freedom within the confines of the strict stanza structure suggest her father had his own desires, roles and individuality within the constrictions put in place by the Japanese government. It could also show how that he is starting to doubt his obedience and realised he wants to pursue the freedom and beauty of life unrestrained.
Last word is “die” this creates a sense of futility and inevitable fate: the soldier was destined to die one way or another. Linking into the idea of the transience of mankind in comparison with nature “figure of eight” (infinity).
- shift in narration from third person to first person when the speaker discusses her fathers return acts as the Volta. “ was no longer the father WE loved” “and sometimes SHE said, he must have wondered which had been the better way to die” This signifies a dramatic shift from external to internal and shows the impact the war has had on her. This is a personal moment and memory, so deserves a personal and subjective perspective experience.
The Émigrée by Carol Rumens
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The Émigrée by Carol Rumens
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Checking out me History by John Agard
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Checking out me History by John Agard
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Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
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Extract from The Prelude by William Wordsworth
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Extract from The Prelude by William Wordsworth
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Storm on the Island by Seamus Heaney
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London by William Blake
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Tissue by Imtiaz Dharker
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Key ideas: Tissue is used as an extended metaphor for life to show that although fragile, humans have a large amount of power to change things.
- tissue paper described to be fragile, easily affected by aging and handling
- paper is then attributed to religious significance through the Quran
- maps and building are then used in the extended metaphor
- Dharker claims that an architect could use tissue to build with and would never need to use brick again
- tissue is then finally likened to skin
Context: Dharker was born in Pakistan, grew up in Glasgow.
. she describes herself as ( Pakistani, Scottish, Muslim, Calvinist)
. the poem comes from the 2006 collection “ terrorists at my table”, which explore global politics, extremism, religion, and fundamentalism.
. Tissue is the first in the collection and explore the source of fundamentalism.
. Dharker presents the idea that humans do not have the right attitude to life, we see it as permanent and an oppurtunity to gain power
Tissue by Imtiaz Dharker
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- ‘let the daylight break through capitals an monoliths” - tissue could perhaps be understood as a critique of mankind’s enduring obsession of attempting to immortalise themself with impressive feats of architecture and monolithic structures. And by extension, can be viewed as a commentary on the futility of this pursuit of “immortality”. This is not a new fixation, just as ramsesses II tried to achieve this in Shelleys “OZYMANDIAS” we are still doing it thousands of years later.
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Tissue by Imtiaz Dharker
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