Poetry

context kamikaze

what is it/about who

who was her dad

what does it explore

daughter’s reflection on her connection + relationship with her father

Kamikaze pilot in WWII - manned suicide missions as a last resort - initially trained until conscripted

explores shunning of her father after refusal of societal expectations

Kamikaze inner conflict quotes 3

her father embarked at sunrise with a samurai sword … shaven head’ = juxtaposition of his role as a father and soldier + Japan is land of rising sun = patriotism

‘his brothers waiting on the shore’ = societal expectations by ALL generations OR father feels need to return (selfless reason to return not just fear of death)

bringing their father’s boat home safe’ = thought of his father returning home ultimately solidifies decision, OR life flashing before his eyes

Kamikaze conflict within families and military quotes 4

6 lines = order + obedience - undermined by enjambment (structural juxtaposition) = the disagreement of the daughter or disobedience of the father

‘like a huge flag’ in daughter’s description of nature = indoctrination of daughter

‘yes grandfather’s boat’ = impact of war is intergenerational + speaker and Garland’s voices merge = intimate tone

‘full of powerful incantations’ = under the spell of patriotism and propaganda

kamikaze conflict between individuals + societal expectations 4

‘My mother never spoke again in his presence, nor did she meet his eyes’ = did not want to see - ashamed of the person he became or feels guilty to give up her husband but must follow culture

‘till gradually we too learned’ = impact passed down

‘was no longer the father we loved.’ = shift to 1st person + full stop = dramatic impact emphasising the impact of war

‘which had been the better way to die’ = extremism of societal expectations OR futility of defying government - detached 3rd person impersonal suggests she doesn’t agree.

Kamikaze conflict between man and nature 4

‘green blue translucent sea’ connotes peace and tranquility - doesn’t want to deny himself nor his victims the beauty of nature

‘arching swathes in a figure of eight’ - symbol of infinity = eternal nature of nature in contrast to the transcience of humanity

‘dark shoals of fishes flashing silver on their bellies swivelled towards the sun’ - sibillance implies grace and peace + increases pace = emotion

‘a tuna, the dark prince, muscular and dangerous,’ - first full stop = deserving of notice OR father hyponotism is broken by nature OR fish is more dangerous = imbalance of power over kamikaze pilot (epitome of bravery + able to destroy nature)

Storm on the Island context

about Ayran Islands = symbol of Irish culture + have oldest remains

Storm on the Islands Power of humans

‘we are prepared’ - first person plural collective = speak as community united against nature + declarative = arrogance - too confident in ability to overpower nature

‘can raise a tragic chorus in a gale’ = community vs isolation + power in numbers

‘Storm on t’ = parliament building in Ireland = metaphor for troubles of Ireland

iambic pentameter = constant rhythm + convo tone = reader involved + engaged, only in community can a storm be endured

‘as you see’ ‘you know what i mean’ = conservational coloquialisms = connect reality of islanders to readers

'Storm on the island power of nature

‘blows full Blast’ - plosives = violence and aggression - enjambment = constant barage of info = constant storm OR breathlessness and panic

‘forgetting that it pummels your house too’ - personification = malintent

‘we are bombarded by the empty air’ - cyclical structure = storm will come again + eternal = nature more powerful

no consistent rhyme scheme = order cannot be forced on nature

no article = collective + generalised OR storms are frequent

Storm on the Island man vs nature quotes

dramatic monologue = one way convo of islanders reflect isolation

‘we build our houses squat’ = military terms + adapter thier life

‘spits like a tamed cat turned savage’ - oxymoronic simile - tame cat shouldn’t be agressive = mistaken belief that they had tamed nature, replicates how nature has ALWAYS been more powerful

1 stanza = overwhelming power of storm overwhelming + panicking islanders

My Last Duchess context

about who

about what

Alonso the duke of Ferrera late 1500s + duchess Lucreszua de ‘Medici

died under mysterious circumstances - based on portrait of the duchess

My Last Duchess power over life and death

‘I gave commands then all smiles stopped all together’ - suggesting his organisation of her death + threat to father (demonstrating and warning control) - sibillance = sinister tone + commands were death - subjunctive = direct action/consequence of demands

My Last Duchess power of the Duke over the Duchess

‘since none puts by the curtain I have drawn for you but I’ - repeats only the duke has power to reveal the last duchess = complete authority, revenge for smiling ‘too’ much, even has agency over her in death

Dramatic monologue = narrator holds power in portrayal

‘was courtesy, she thought, cause enough for calling up that spot of joy’ - metaphor for blushing, dislikes because not in his control/cause of him - doesn’t value her opinion

‘A heart - how shall i say - too soon made glad, too easily impressed; .. her looks went everywhere’ - suggests she was unfaithful despite crime was talking, pausing = thinly vieled anger, his decision what was ‘too’ much’

‘the bough of cherries some afficious fool Broke in the orchard for her’ - enjambment + fricitives increase pace = anger

My last duchess exertion of power to new Duchess’ father

‘Wilt please you sit and look at her? I said’ = focus on himself, implies he tried to speak, despite question, it is an order = controlling

1 stanza = no time for anyone to speak

‘who’d stoop to blame this sort of trifling’ - rhetorical question = dominating the convo

My last duchess status

‘Fra Pandolf’s hands worked busily’ - the painter, boosts status (can affort master painter)

‘her mantly laps over my lady’s wrist’ - was too big = she is young + lacks status

‘I choose NEver to stoop’ - doesn’t acknowledge percieved issues - views as below him (too proud)

The Emigrée context

1933 ‘thinking skins’ on political consciousness

the emigree nostalgia quotes

‘there once was a country … I left as a child’ - elipsis = pause to gather thought - temporal dexis = childlike tone + fantastical nature of memory over reality

‘sunlight clear’ + epistrophe of ‘sunlight’ / motif of sunlight - represents her romanticised memory + the idealism of youth (was never perfect) + unreliability of memory - epistrophe = regardless of news she will ALWAYS have a positive view (connotations of sun)

‘my original view, the bright filled paperweight’ - stops rational thought + weighs her down - ‘filled’ = memory frozen/encased + beautiful

the emigree conflict between reality + her memory quotes

(nostalgia quotes)

‘white streets .. grow clearer as the time rolls its tanks’ - ‘white’ = pure, ‘tanks’ = militaristic language + juxtaposition embodies reality she’s still not accepting

‘like a hollow doll’ - no depth to memory OR empty without country

the emigree conflict at her native country

‘it may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants’ - ‘sick’ = impermanent + subjunctive case = flaws seem hypothetical

free verse + no rhyme = chaos + lack of control of government

the emigree conflict in the city

‘they accuse me of absence, they circle me. They accuse me of being dark’ - persecution and segregation the narroator endures, ‘they’ = agressive repetition + accusatory + definitive unlike description of home country

‘they mutter death’ - agression due to racism

the emigree isolation and loss (lost childhood) quotes

‘I have no passport’ alludes to pain + conflict inflicted by man made borders

‘my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight’ - juxtaposition = complex, ambiguity OR conflicted - ‘shadow’ = darkness she faces in exile OR physical manifestation of her past = testament to her resilience - ‘sunlight’ = hope for the future despite exile + ends on this sense of hope OR still feels connection to homeland (idealised and unreliable)

the emigree identity quotes

‘my city hides behind me’ + ‘i comb its hair’ = maternal want to excuse

‘branded by the impression of sunlight’ - ‘branded’ violent verb + her country stays with her/permanent + juxtaposes ‘sunlight’ - ‘impression’ = not real/false thought

checking out me history context

born colonised Guyana + recieved British education = eurocentric view of history

checking out me history conflict quotes

‘bandage up me eye with me own history Blind me to me own idenity’ - violent metaphor = cruelty of colonialism + deliberate

‘but now I checking out me own history I carving out me history’ - active + violent ongoing verb = defienat and determined

war historical figures

checking out me history opression / exertion of power

anger - ‘dem tell me x2’ - plosive = anger at authroity figues + society, repetition = accusatory tone + dominates poem like colonialism

simple rhyhme scheme = eurocentric view is childish

‘dem tell me about Florence Nightingale Dem never tell me about Mary Seacole’ juxtaposition of the celebation of two historical figures who worked together as nurses = adovocate for celebration of no white historical figures

repetive structuve = education system is formulaic + systematic in its opression

checking out me history impat of colonialism

use of italics = dual structure = different accounts of history

dick whittingtono and he cat But Toussaint L’overture’ - ridicules cartoons taught over historical figures (place together for emphasiss) - connective but = black + white history cannot taught seperately - Tussaint led revolution against french colony Haiti

rhyhm scheme is predictable = aim to end segregation

checking out me history identity

dedicated stanza to black history

‘toussaint de beacon’ ‘fire woman struggle’ ‘healing star’ ‘yellow sunrise’ = motif of light imagery = emotional significance OR enlightenment of own history - ‘beacon’ = source of guidance - ‘sunrise’ = hope for dying sense of identity

‘dem’ = non standard phonetic spelling (Creole = celebration of poets language_ = resisiting traditions of english + colonial rule OR oral poetry

charge of the light brigade context

881 crimean war russia vs england

poet laureate = public figure but not too political

first publicised war = realities of war not propaganda

light brigade courage

‘noble 600’ ‘boldly they rode’ glorifies + compliments soldiers not leaders

ballad commemorates their death

diatylic diameter like horse (1 long and 2 short) = unrelenting

light brigade duty

theirs not to make reply, theirs to not reason why, theirs to do and die’ - anaphora creates militaristic orders + emphasises obligation - ‘theirs’ lack or individuality = crticises ideals and regime

‘wild charge’ = futility of war + inherent problems following orders

‘horse and hero fell’ - euphamism hides reality

light brigade conflict and power

‘someone had bludner’d’ crticies leaders - suggests silly unnessary mistake

‘shatter’d and sunder’d’ - sibilance + plosive = horror of war

‘cannon to the left cannot to the right cannon to ..’ - surrounded = ill prepared with swords

irregular rhyme scheme = chaos

light brigade death

‘rode the 600’ repetition emphasis num lives lost

semantic field of death = inveritable + couples show inveritability

‘valley of death’ - irionic bibilical reference (God did not help) OR inevitable fate OR shape of battle

‘into the Jaws of Death, into the Mouth of Hell’ - development of journey - ‘death’ = biblical figure + personification = conscious + predatory, soldiers are prey + vulnerable

remains context

dramatic monologue of interview

remains effects of war

‘dug in behind enemy lines’ - military terms + long term memory

‘the drink and the drugs won’t flush him out’ - substance abuse harsh reality for soldiers

'his blood shaddow’ - literal stain or idea of his death stays on mind

‘remains’ = damage OR mental demage oR physical remains of war OR corpse

repitition of ‘probably armed, possibly not’ = guilt/inner conflict - always wondering if not - PTSD

medias res - always in the centre of it

‘blink, sleep dream’

remains violence, cofllict - criticising military

‘tosses his guts’ ‘carted off’ - hauled wihtout car = prevalance + usual routine - dehumanisation makes it easier - blind to horror ‘one of them legs it up the road’ - cololquial language reminds interview OR discordant/jarring on topic

‘not left for dead in some distant sun stunned sand smothered land’ - sibilance is uncomfy + vague applies to any conflict

‘rips through his life’ - violent plosive agressive verb

‘sort of inside out’ ‘i see broad daylight on the other side’ = gruesome imagery of destruction

'‘myself and somebody else x2’ - copies + names unimportant (will die)

‘another occassion we got sent out’ = frequent following orders

‘three of kind’ ‘all of the same mind’ - repetition shows indoctrination into military + subversion of guilt through collective responsibility

exposure context

soldier in WW1 - owen’s personal story

exposure reality of conflict

elipses - emphasises bordem (raders experience/slows pace)

‘but nothing happens’ - refrain + cyclical structure demonstrates anticipation + repetive nature of war / mind numbing

‘what are we dong here?’ rhetorical - soldiers questioning - physical + mental disollutionment

‘like a dull rumour of some other war - simile = battle far off and still suffering = indirect nature of war

exposure effects of conflict

‘loosing consciousness’ ‘sun dozed, littered with blosoms’ ‘pale flakes with fingeringn stealth streak the silence’ = passage of time OR hyothermia / confusion

mental health - ‘poignant misery of dawn begins to grow’ juxtaposition of usualy happy = cannot feel happy

‘for love of god seems dying’

‘nor ever suns smile on child, or field or fruit’ - superlative ‘ever’, hope symbols = hopelesness and loss of inocence

exposure power of nature

‘shivering ranks of grey’ personification of army

‘sudden sucessive flights of bullets streak the silence less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow’ - short sentences = war and refocus, sibilance / malintent

‘in the merciless iced east winds that knive us’ - personification induces feaer, immediately set as conflict

‘worried by silent sentries whisper curious nervous’ - re occuring sibilence = uncomfy

‘tonight this frost will fasten on this mind and us’

‘pause over half-known faces. all their eyes ice’ - metaphor for power of nature OR people buring have seen so much feel indifference - ‘half known’ = wont be remembered by society or military - emphasises horrors of war

ozymandias context

pharoah ramses II - tyrant cruel abuse of power - 100 wives

King george III

ozymandias power of art

‘tell that its sculptor well those passoins read’ - sculptors throughts suceeds = art endures

iambic pentameter - timeless = shellley gives legacy

ozymandias futility of man made power

‘two vast trunkless legs of stone’ - brought to his knees/lost the battle = symbol of decay of civilisation + temporary tyranny

‘half sunk, a shattered visage lies’ - ‘half sunk’ - legacy buried with him + power deteriorates with him

‘wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command’ - gutteral alliteration

‘on the pedastal’ places himself on a figurative and literal pedastal = hubris

‘king of kings’ ‘look on my works ye Mighty and despair’ challenge to god + arrogant hubris causes down fall + ‘my works’ is ironic (everything has succumbed to nature - insignificance)

oxymandias power of nature + time

‘nothing beside remains’ - volta

‘collosal wreck, boundless and bare’ = plosive alliterance + power of nature

London context

industrial revolution

london corrupotion/upper class power

‘the chartered streets the chartered thames does flow’ - people own parts of the thames

‘and blights with plague the marriage hearse’ - oxymoron death and marriage = marriage is a sentence to the poor, should be happy but leads to death + neer ending cycle

‘mind forged manacle's’ refraining concelaing their thoughts - silenced by capitalism - not enough money to be seen as useful

How the Chimney sweepers cry

Every Blackning church appalls

And the hapless soldier’s sigh

Runs in blood down palace walls

‘hear’ = imploring to listen

‘cry’ echoe trhough city = severely mistreated and universal suffering

‘black’ning’ = afffect of pollution (industrial revolution) OR black impurities constrast usual connotations of church and religion suggests corruption

‘hapless’ = hopeless work tireleessy for no reward

‘blood’ lines their palace - ‘walls’ = hide behind walls + protected by their lives + suffereing of lower class in the hands of monarchy

london poverty

mark in every face i meet, marks of weakness, markness of woe’ - repetition = everbody affected + situtation so dire even infants notice (neglected hopelessness) + innocent

nursery rhyme - easier to understand

prelude identity

transitioning to adult/growing up - ‘horizons uptmost boundary’ = secure understanding - ecvited about stealing ‘troubled conflict’ oxymoron

becoming romantic poet

prelude inner conflict

‘and measured motion like living thing strode after me’ personification + long sentences= fear panic confusion

'trouble conflict’

prelude conflict man and nature

‘trembling oars’ = petrified + hero usually brave in ballad

‘I struc and struck again’ - alliteration = intimidating and predatory

‘‘led by her’ = immediately personified ‘glittering’ ‘sparkling’ = semantic field of calm connotes usual safety

the sublime ‘huge peak black and huge’ - repetition = threatening and large

bayonet charge context

bayonet = long sharp blade at the end of a rifle

bayonet charge conflict (+fear/terror)

‘hot khaki his sweat heavy’ - alliteration = panting

‘his terrors touchy dynamite’ set of at ‘sudenly’ = extended metaphor could explode at any moment

enjambment - movement through stanzas even though he doesn’t want to - soldier can’t stop

bayonet charge nature vs man

‘threshing circle’ - sperates grain from unusable

‘threw up a yellow hare’ - sumbol for him OR only other living thing = isolation

bayonet charge disollutionment

‘king honour human dignity etcetera’ - asyndetic list increases pace + ‘etcetera’ undermines previous + suggests lack of belief in higher meaning despite propoganda - doesnt matter in battle

‘suddnely he awoke’ - third person pronoun = universally applicable OR anoymity - doesn’t matter if you die

‘lugged a rifle’ = lack of motiviatioini

‘numb as a smadhed arm’ connotes rifle as burden OR forshadows injury

'‘cold clockwork of the stars’ mechanical imagery + alliteration = dehumanised cog in the machine with no control

poppies war

‘spasms of red paper disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding your blazer' - militaristic language _ plosives = harsh emotionsn OR war is intense OR captures audience if hes dead

‘you were away intoxicated’ - drunk with happiness connotes side effects of alcohol or hasnt fully considered it - in contrast to the mother advocates support for families

poppies grief

enjambment + free verse = rush of thoughts / emotions / stream of consciousness

dove - repeated symoblism of death OR peace

cyclical structure - returns to what triggered the memory = endless worry

‘after you were gone … released a songbird from its cage’ - metaphor for her emotions + wanted to be strong for him

‘all my words flattened rolled turned into felt’ - her work as a seamstress - loss for words

ambiguity of if he’s dead = applicalbe OR stay in reader’s mind = awaerness to affect of war domestically

poppies parenthood

‘I was brave’ - bravery of the mother not the soldier is unusual - more brave because she didnt choose

‘playground voice catching on the wind’ - metaphor still a child to her

‘like we did when you were little’ - reminiscing + nostalgia

‘cellotape bnadaged around my hand’ - familiar domestic scene + nostaligia OR foreshadowing

war photographer religion

all flesh is grass - biblical reference to cycle of life + transcience of life

war photographer power

‘his editor will pick out 5 or 6 for sunday’s supplement’ - quick to feel informed without real consideration / supplement for real emotion + editor controls the narrative profiting on suffering

war photographer desensitation + its moral implications

‘he has a job to do’ - monsyllabic = professional and objective

‘to do what someone must’ - imperative = moral obligation to document but not intervene + spread awareness

‘eyes will prick between baths and pre lunch beers’ - ultimately return to comforts - ‘prick’ bief and momentary

‘from the areoplane he stares impassively at where he arns his living and they do not care’ - ‘impassively’ desensitised and moral - ‘they’ amibiguity editor? society? - ‘earns his living’ - also profits + cyclical returns to him alone

war photographer suffering

‘fields which dont explode beneath the feet of running children in nightmare heat’ - ‘children’ symbol of innoncence - juxtaposition of ‘reural england’ = inspires introspection

‘belfast. beruit. pnom penh.’ - common conflict in 70s and 80s + asyndetic increases pace = professional OR cant sepnd time thinking about it

‘spools of suffering ladi out in ordered rows’ - metaphor for graves + sibiliance is unfomfy

‘strangers featues begin to twist before his eyes’ - the way the photo develops OR ptsd

‘ a hundred agaonies in black and white’ - the actual photo OR metaphor for subjective callous unempathetic view.

power of nature poems ( more powerful than man, more than conflict)

more powerful than man

• prelude = Wordsworth first time fear of nature + inspired interest of the sublime

• ozymandias - overcome all false sense of power

• Storm on the Island - islanders ultimately defenseless and forced to hide - constantly bombarded by storms

more powerful than conflict

• exposure - soldiers fear nature over acutal war IN COMBO WITH TIME monotony killing them more

• kamikaze - catalyses decision to return/life flashing before his eyes/reflecting on what he may destroy

reality of conflict poems

reality of conflict

• bayonet charge - explores the futility / lack of weight patriotism holds in the face of real conflict

• charge of the light brigade - publicised exposes military can be wrong and unfair

• exposure - war is not glamorous, destroys mental state and weather is biggest enemy

suffering poems /effects of conflict

in war

• war photographer - PTSD + trauma ]

after war

• remains - pTSD and trauma

of families

• kamikaze - generational effect of coonflict / expectations of patriotism

• emigree - despite conflict in home country, nostalgia overpowers + conflict in new country

• poppies - advocate for support for grieving families

fear poems

• storm on the island - of the islands of nature

• the prelude - of the sublime

• the emigree - of the new city

• bayonet charge - false bravery + patriotism cannot overcome fear of actual battle

bravery poems

• bayonet charge - false bravery + patriotism cannot overcome fear of battle

• kamikaze - blind bravery of indoctrinated kamikaze soldiers + doesnt discount as bravery

• charge of the light brigade - bravery of soldies despite inevitable + preventable death

identity + inequality poems

• kamikaze - role as a father vs soldier, necessity to conform to societal expectations

• emigree - causes conflict + attatchment to identity

• checking out me history - identity opressed by colonialism = need to take back identity = anger towards this

• london - INEQUALITY of the classes in London

pride poems

• bayonet charge - pride of the military + indoctrinating into patriotism

• ozymandias - pride/hubris of Ramses causes his downfall

• war photographer - pride of british public (emphathy for conflict for appearance)

• storm on the island - pride of islanders causes downfall/ reminded of the futility of their actions

abuse of power and its effects poems

• london - upper classs exploitation

• charge of hte light brigade - power of the military

• tiissue - fragility of human life + human connection more important

• my last duchess - power imbalance in relationhip + express/exert this power on new wife

• remains - causes pTSD + questioning authrority (forced to follow military orders) + internal conflict