The charge of the light brigade author
Alfred lord tennyson
Exposure author
Wilfred Owen
Bayonet charge author
Ted Hughes
Remains author
Simon armitage
Poppies author
Jane weir
War photographer author
Carol Ann Duffy
Kamikaze author
Beatrice garland
Charge of the light brigade rhythm
Dactylic dimeter
Charge of the light brigade context
Written in a few minutes about the Crimean war. Lord raglan sent an order to take some cannons but they tried to take them all
COTLB form
Irregular rhyme scheme, no pattern to the events
Dactylic dimeter, mimics the horses’ hooves
Structure
Lots of anaphora, repeating the start of Aline, represents how they are all in the same frame of mind
Epiphora, a lot of lines end in death, shows how they will die
COTLB quotes
Rose the six hundred… left of 600… noble 600
Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs to do or die
Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them
When can their glory fade?
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Exposure context
Written by Wilfred Owen while in the trenches, representing how nothing happened but the weather affected them
Exposure form
Each stanza ends in a half line, represents how it never fully ends and gets anywhere
Semantic field of weather to represent its dominance
Other lines: what are we doing here? Is it that we are dying? We turn back to our dying. For love of god is dying
4 of the lines end in but nothing happens
Exposure quotes
But nothing happens x4
For love of god seems dying
Slowly our ghosts drag home
We only know war lasts, rain soaks and clouds sag stormy
Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow
Attacks once more in ranks in shivering ranks of grey (German outfits)
Bayonet charge context
Bayonet - sword coming out of a rifle
Ted Hughes was the poet laureate from 1984 to 98 received order of merit from queen Elizabeth ii
Ted Hughes was in raf but never saw combat
Ted Hughes’s father survived his regiment’s massacre in Gallipoli
About WW1
Bayonet charge form
Begins mid-action, we are confused like the soldier
The pace is much slower in the middle stanza where he questions what he is doing
The second stanza where they question it is shorter
Enjambment, even between stanzas, and caesura, chaos
Bayonet charge quotes
He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm
The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye
In what cold clockwork of the stars and he nations / Was he the hand pointing that second?
King, honour, human dignity etcetera / Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm
Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest
Remains context
About a soldier who has PTSD after killing a man
Intended to make people feel sorry for the effects that war has on people
Group of soldiers running away from a bank raid that they were involved in, described in graphic detail. Not sure whether he was unarmed or not is on his mind
In poetry collection “ the not dead” from interviews with soldiers
Remains form
A lot of colloquialism, like he is speaking, seems more real
A lot of enjambment to show how it never ends
Volta in the middle where it starts talking about his PTSD rather than the event
Regular stanzas
No rhyme
Remains quotes
Probably armed, possibly not x2
Well myself and somebody else and somebody else / are all of the same mind
and I swear / I see every round as it rips through his life - I see broad daylight on the other side
Tosses his guts
End of story, except not really. / His blood shadow stays on the street
Poppies context
Set in present day, soldier going to Iraq/Iran
A mother’s perspective of a son going to war
Reference to Jesus “blackthorns of your hair” the crown he wore when he was sacrificed
Poppies form
First person narrative, allows us to see the effects more evidently and clearly
Enjambment, constantly changing her thoughts and feelings
Caesura, represents how she is so emotional
Poppies quotes
Spasms of paper red
I wanted to graze my nose / across the top of your nose, play at / being Eskimos like we did when / you were little
I was brave, as I walked / with you, to the front door, threw / it open
I traced / the inscriptions on the war memorial
I listened, hoping to hear / your playground voice catching on the wind
War photographer context
Carol Ann Duffy met a war photographer called James nachtway who inspired her to write the poem
War photos had just started to become more common, particularly in the Vietnam war, which alerted people to war but “they do not care”
War photographer form
4 regular stanzas and a regular rhyme scheme represent the monotony of his life
Starts with him coming back home and ends with him going back
Present tense, more immediate, real and shocking
3rd person observational
Matter of fact, no complex vocab, semantic field of suffering
War photographer quotes
The only light is red and softly glows
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel, / to fields which don’t explode beneath the feat / of running children in a nightmare heat
A stranger’s features / faintly start to twist before his eyes
how he sought approval / without words to do what someone must
The reader’s eyeballs prick / with tears between the bath and the pre-lunch beers
Kamikaze context
About a Japanese kamikaze pilot who turned around halfway to his goal
Reflects the immense social pressure on men at war
Might prompt that suicide is still a problem in today’s world
Kamikaze form
Written from the viewpoint of the pilot’s daughter talking to her children
Calm tone- represents how she has accepted her father’s fate
Suppressing her emotions
Kamikaze quotes
he must have looked down / at the little fishing boats / strung out like bunting / on a green-blue translucent sea
enough fuel for a one-way / journey into history
arcing in swathes / like a huge flag waved first one way / then the other in a figure of eight
My mother never spoke again / in his presence
she said, he must have wondered / which had been the better way to die
Storm on the island (SOTI) author
Seamus Heaney
SOTI context
Title starts with STORMONT part of Nothern Ireland where fighting happened and then peace agreed after poem was written
Britain sought to exploit Irish Catholics