War Photographer

"Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows".

- sibilance in 'spools of suffering' creates the impression of the true nature of war being hushed and quietened so people can carry on with their everyday lives

- The "ordered rows" may be the photographer's way of getting some order into his life which is usually chaotic and disorderly due to his job.

- May also create an image of mass graves, ranks of soldiers creating a symbolic link to the horrors of war which are depicted on the films themselves.

"A hundred agonies in black and white".

Pun-dark humour-bitter which suggests black and white pictures but also life and death

"Running children in a nightmare heat".

- Designed to make the reader understand the intensity of the suffering caused by war

- Duffy refers to children to remind the reader of the innocent lives affected by war.

reference to vietnam photo

"The reader's eyeballs prick/ with tears, between the bath and pre-lunch beers"

- half rhyme (tears and beers)

- creates an unsatisfying sound showing the speed at which people return to their privileged lives

- increases pace of the line - contrast with the long drawn-out process of developing photos to show that no one cares as much as he does

"All flesh is grass".

- Biblical imagery and a metaphor.

- points out the scale of bloodshed and creates a gruesome image

- line from the Bible meaning that human life is transitory (fleeting

"The reader's eyeballs prick/ with tears"

- "eyeballs' instead of eyes suggests act of crying after seeing photos is almost mechanical - not affected by photos , only go through physical process of crying, no genuine emotion

- "eyeballs' connotes ugliness - reflects ugliness of readers' disingenuous response

structure - rigid form

six lines per stanza, ABBCDD rhyme scheme

- rigidity of the form is at odds with the chaos of war

- structure doesn't change - war photographers inability to change anything as his work falls on an unreceptive audience

- reflects meticulous way in which photographer works ("ordered rows") - sober, careful rituals = he way of maintaining a sense of normality or trying to his thoughts, emotions and memories, which overwhelm him

structure- cyclical structure

poem both ends with him going to war and starts with him just come back

- creates a sense of futile repetition and continuation of past mistakes - his work has not changed anything