There are fifteen poems in the GCSE Power & Conflict anthology.

For your exam, you will be given one poem in full, printed on the page, and you will be asked to compare this poem to another from the anthology.

All of the GCSE English Literature course is closed-book, meaning that you will need to learn at least three lines from each poem.

It is possible to get top marks for this question by making sure that you know the following:

• What the poem is about

• What the poem means

• The methods the poet uses to convey their message

• The links between the ideas of other poems in the anthology

Synopsis

This section includes:

• A general overview of the poem

• A detailed look at the poem line-by-line

• Analysis of the poem, giving Jane Weir’s intention and message

A General Overview of the Poem

Poppies explores the ‘other side’ of war: its effect on those left behind, rather than those out fighting. The speaker, a mother, is reminiscing about her son, a soldier, and blending imagery of his childhood, his early adulthood as he departs for war, and his absence at home now – presumably due to his death. The poem explores the nature of grief and nostalgia from the perspective of a loving family member.

Line-by-Line

Three days before Armistice Sunday

and poppies had already been placed

on individual war graves. Before you left,

The poem opens with a reference to Remembrance Day (“Armistice Sunday”), reinforcing one of the interpretations elicited by the title, Poppies: that this is a poem about loss in the context of war. The reference again to “poppies”, which have been “already placed” on “war graves”, indicates that there has been a recent conflict (though it is never named in the poem) and therefore that this is a poem about present and immediate grief rather than a ninety-years-on reflection on WW1 at a distance.

The caesura on the third line, and the according inclusion of “Before you left” in the same line as “war graves”, makes it clear that the “you” in this line is a departed (and we can presume deceased) soldier. At this stage, the relationship between speaker and addressee is undefined.

I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals,

spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade

of yellow bias binding around your blazer.

In this tender moment, we learn that the speaker is almost certainly a parent, hence being the one to “pin[ a poppy] onto [the soldier’s] lapel”. Perhaps hyper-focusing on the clothing’s details to keep emotionally steady, whilst also establishing a lexical field of textiles which can be exploited later as an extended metaphor for her emotions. Already, the imagery is emotive (“spasms”, “disrupting”) and evocative (the choice of “blockade” conjuring images of military-civic interaction and conflict) but subtle nevertheless.

Sellotape bandaged around my hand,

I rounded up as many white cat hairs

as I could, smoothed down your shirt’s

upturned collar, steeled the softening

of my face. I wanted to graze my nose

Another tender moment follows the previous one, this time cementing the speaker’s identity as a parent. The domestic reference to “white cat hairs” and the fussing typical of parents (“Sellotape” hair gathering, “smooth[ing] down” of shirt collars) lend this moment real sweetness. 

Nevertheless, there is conflict. First, there is the subtle but unmistakable reference to violence in the choice of “bandaged” rather than, say, ‘wrapped’. Then, more emotively, there is the conflict between the parent’s “softening” and “want[ing]” to be tender and the apparent need to harden up in the context of goodbyes: “steeled”.

across the tip of your nose, play at

being Eskimos like we did when

you were little. I resisted the impulse

to run my fingers through the gelled

blackthorns of your hair. All my words

Once again, the speaker is “resist[ing]” the desire to be affectionate: “Eskimo[ kisses]”, “run[ning her] fingers through [his] hair”, attempting to harden herself. A reader may conjecture that this is to prevent an emotional unravelling, or that it is to maintain social veneer in a public farewell – but it would be equally easy to imagine that she is attempting to prevent ‘mum embarrassment’ in her son.

The emotions are heightened in this part of the poem, with almost every line now enjambing and being punctuated by caesurae. The emotional instability of this memory is reflected in the form of the poem. Even the internal rhyme of “nose” and “Eskimos”, an isolated moment of rhyming in a free verse poem, is jarring: a twee sing-song moment against the backdrop of chaotic emotion, the nostalgia breaking through the facade for a moment.

flattened, rolled, turned into felt,

slowly melting. 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.

The earlier textile imagery is picked up once again, here, with the speaker’s words “turn[ing] into felt”, reflecting her inability to articulate and her falling back into the comfortable familiarity of clothing imagery. Once again, her concerted efforts to be “brave” or unemotional are at odds with her “melting” emotions which she won’t make into language in front of her son.

Her bravery allows her, for a short while, to imagine that letting her son leave is an opportunity (“the world overflowing / like a treasure chest”) that she has the power to gift to him: “[she] walked [and] threw [the door] open” for him. The caesura of the full stop and the half-line, “A split second”, immediately following, shows how little time it took for his son to take this opportunity: to be “away, intoxicated” with life.

After you'd gone I went into your bedroom,

released a song bird from its cage.

This two-line sentence represents the climax of the withheld expression at odds with the building emotion. We have the speaker’s final catharsis. She waits until her son has “gone” and then unleashes her emotion: “releas[ing] a songbird from its cage”, likely sobbing. The fact that it is in his “bedroom” shows that it is tied to the loss of him – at this point not even in the context of death.

Later a single dove flew from the pear tree,

and this is where it has led me,

skirting the churchyard walls, my stomach busy

making tucks, darts, pleats, hat-less,

without a winter coat or reinforcements

of scarf, gloves. On reaching the top of the hill

In this next section, the metaphor for bird-as-emotion is continued, this time with “a single dove” – a recognisable symbol of wartime peace, perhaps indicating that the conflict has ended. Temporally, we can assume there is a shift, though unlike the previous adverbials (“A split second” and “After you’d gone”), which seem to be ‘soon after’ the departure, this one (“Later”) actually represents what must be a significant period of time. 

This shift is subtly integrated so that there is no clue given that time has passed and that the addressee of the poem, the son, has likely passed. She is “led” by the “dove”, to the “churchyard walls”, her “stomach busy” with butterfly sensations, giving us subtle hints that she is visiting one of the aforementioned “war graves”. It is implicit, but unsettling hints are dropped.

Once more, emotional candour is substituted for textile imagery, with the asyndetic “tucks, darts, pleats” representing her emotional turmoil and the “hat-less[ness]” and lack of “winter coat [or] scarf or gloves” representing how raw and exposed her emotions are at this point. The textile imagery continues to represent a safe ‘cover’ for emotional liberation.

I traced the inscriptions on the war memorial,

leaned against it like a wishbone.

This sentence contains a beautiful simile that is worth unpacking. The speaker “lean[s] against” the “war memorial [...] like a wishbone”. 

Visually, we are presented with a touching image of a bereft parent substituting physical closeness to her late child with the emblem of his departure and memorialisation. But metaphorically, there is more going on. A wishbone is broken between two people and the winner of the larger piece gets to make a wish; in this instance, when she detaches herself from the side of the memorial, she will be the smaller piece – that is the only way. If she is the smaller piece, then it is the larger piece – the war memorial, and by extension the war that it represents – that will gain the wish, which is of course her son’s life. The war claims her son’s life and she is left with a broken wish and his memory. 

That’s a lot of meaning packed into a tiny piece of imagery.

The dove pulled freely against the sky,

an ornamental stitch, I listened,

hoping to hear your playground voice

catching on the wind.

In the final piece of the poem, the dove “pull[ing] freely against the sky” becomes an “ornamental stitch”, tying together the two extended metaphors of her emotions, whose “free[dom]” represents the cathartic nature of this poem. She has finally become emotionally liberated. 

In this final moment of candour, therefore, she is able to express plainly what her deepest desire is: to “hear [her son’s] playground voice / catching on the wind”. In the final lines, she is resolutely a parent, doing what parents do: remembering their offspring’s childhood innocence with wistful longing, wilfully sidelining the present picture. In her case, it is entirely understandable.

Writer’s Methods

This section aims to support your revision by providing you with concrete and clear examples of methods that Jane Weir uses.

Remember: methods support meaning, not the other way round. You will gain more marks focusing your essays on the big ideas of the poems and then supporting these ideas with the methods that the writer uses.

Form

The poem is one, long, unbroken stanza. Its lines are unbroken sentences (that is, they run over multiple lines: enjambement). As such, the writing is very prosaic (meaning prose-like), suiting the confessional and unpoetic tone of the grieving mother; it reads like someone speaking. It is almost entirely rhymeless and without meter, with the free verse form serving to heighten the verisimilitude of the expression. It feels authentic, barely elevated above prose except in its richness of imagery.

Structure

The poem is apparently cyclical in structure, starting and ending with the days leading up to Armistice Sunday. In the interim, the narrative is chronological, starting with the son’s departure for war, moving through the immediate aftermath, and climaxing with the later aftermath of his apparent death in action. Moving from the macro to the micro level, the lines are in free verse, with no initial capitalisation nor much end-stopping, which combines with the frequent enjambement and caesurae to create a very naturalistic depiction of speech and consciousness, taking us on a journey through this parent’s emotional processing of grief.

Language

The most consistent language feature of note is the use of extended metaphors for emotional candour. The poet uses textile imagery and avian imagery to represent emotional containment, processing, and expression. We note how the speaker’s “words [...] turned into felt” and how her stomach made “tucks, darts, pleats”. We observe how in her son’s wake she “released a song bird from its cage” and is “led” by “a single dove” that later “pull[s] freely against the sky, / an ornamental stitch”. Whilst the imagery is evocative and beautiful, it nevertheless obscures clear meaning; the speaker continues to struggle with emotional literacy or liberty – the metaphors are easier. This euphemising of emotional impact is a recognisable trait of people in grief.

Context

If you ordered a portion of chips, and asked for salt, you wouldn’t then dump the salt into the corner of your chips and start dipping each individual chip into the salt. 

When you put salt on your chips, you sprinkle it over, sparingly, so as to give a good coverage of salt across the chips as a whole. Context is just like salt on chips. 

Context is not ketchup – because it would be appropriate to squeeze ketchup into the corner of your plate and dip each chip in (and in fact, that is advised).

So when you’re including contextual information in your essays, sprinkle it across the essay, just like you sprinkle salt on your chips.

Let’s link the context to the key ideas and themes of the poem.

Biographical and National Insight

Jane Weir, poet and textile worker, was commissioned to write this poem for the 2009 ‘Poetry Remembrance Program’ – likely capitalising on her family’s legacy of living through the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’ and the ongoing Iraq and Afghan wars the UK were involved in during this decade, to compensate for her own lack of direct experience with war.

Poppies

The poppy is a widely accepted symbol for military sacrifice, most clearly as an emblem of Remembrance Sunday, celebrated annually to commemorate the end of World War 1.

Comparison

You are required to write an essay in your exam that is a comparison of the ideas and themes explored in two poems from the Power & Conflict anthology. Therefore, it is very important to revise the poems in pairs and to enter the exam with an idea of what poem you will choose to compare once you know what the named poem is.

Poppies and War Photographer

Both poems explore the impact of war on those not involved in the fighting: families of the fallen and professional documentarians. Both poems use artistic or creative outlets as ways to circumvent true emotional engagement. However, Poppies focuses on the processing of grief in the wake of a child lost to war, whilst War Photographer focuses on the guilt associated with making a living out of a kind of exploitation of those directly affected by war.

Similarity:

Both poems depict the evasion of true emotional engagement with war’s effects.

Evidence and Analysis 

Weir’s poem presents a mother whose grief over the loss of her son is veiled by nostalgia and poetic imagery quite at odds with the free verse form it is written in. The speaker dwells on memory, “play[ing] at / being Eskimos like [they] did when [her son was] little” and “your playground voice” instead of the present reality that is her son’s absence. The use of nostalgic imagery of a childhood idealised in ‘Eskimo kisses’ and schoolyard frivolity shows an (understandable) unwillingness to face a tragic reality.

Duffy’s poem conveys a photographer whose emotional detachment from his work is a necessary contributor to its success. He justifies his “impassive[ness]” with the apologism of “ha[ving] a job to do”, returning home to where “simple weather can dispel” any emotional pain. There is candour, admitting to being impassive, balanced uncomfortably with an attempt to mitigate his shame, creating a sense of emotional instability which unsettles the reader.

Difference:

The poets present different effects of memory regarding war and its impacts.

Evidence and Analysis

Jane Weir’s focus is on the nostalgic memory that soothes someone in mourning.

In her poem, the speaker focuses on tender moments of connection between her and her son. She recalls “pinn[ing a poppy] onto [his] lapel”, “round[ing] up [the] white cat hairs” and “smooth[ing] down [his] upturned collar”, showing someone who is indulging in being maternal. In these moments, she is active, agent of the verbs, taking ownership of her behaviour, in contrast with her present inability to process emotions, a willful effort to live in the memory instead of the current reality.

Contrastingly, in Duffy’s poem, the speaker’s engagement with memory is more stirringly real and immediate.

In her poem, the photographer engages with the reality of the wartime situation more when it is through memory, not less. There are passing references to “fields [...] explod[ing] in a nightmare heat”, “blood stained into foreign dust” and a “hundred agonies”, which he recalls in detail when he is safe at home and a picture develops “before his eyes”, whereupon he “remembers the cries”. The emotive language of “explode”, “nightmare”, “blood”, “agonies” and “cries” combines to depict an immediacy evoked by these memories.