War Photographer Flashcards
“Darkroom” / “Red”
Connotations of the colours… violence and loneliness
“Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows”
- ‘Ordered rows’ 1.reflects structure 2.suggestion of graves
- Sibilance
- The ‘spools’ themselves can’t suffer but what is shown on them can bring suffering
“All flesh is grass”
- Rosetti & Bible reference
- Futility of life
“beneath his hands, which did not tremble then/though seem to now”
-‘Tremble’ due to emotion felt… not replicated by society
“A strangers features/faintly start to twist”
-Ambiguous
Literal: developing the photo
Figurative: person in pain
“A half-formed ghost”
-Metaphor
Image of death
Image on photo
“A hundred agonies in black-and-white”
1 Photo
2 good/bad
3 truth/lies
“The readers eyeballs prick/with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers”
- Rhyme quickens pace reflecting speed that people forget (futile)
- Juxtaposes ‘tears’ with comfortable images of ‘bath’ and ‘pre lunch beers’
- Anger… tears are meaningless
“He earns his living and they do not care”
- Final line
- Putting his life at risk and in reality people don’t care
- ‘They’… the public/media/us
Written by…
Carol Ann Duffy
-poem is about the ‘difficult decisions’
MAIN THEMES
- Photographers MORALITY
- Emotion
- Clear/blunt like a photo
Structure?
-Strict Structure
4 stanzas of 6 lines following abbcdd
(symbolises photographers discipline and the ordered structure of war)
-Cyclical… reflecting the never ending emotions of war
Inspiration?
Carol Ann Duffy’s friends that are war photographers… Don McCullin
