War Photographer

‘Spools of suffering, set out in ordered rows’

War is presented as brutal and hard to photograph due to the pain and suffering, but the photographer has a devotion to justice.

‘Beneath his hands, which did not tremble then, though seem to now’ ‘Home again to ordinary pain’

Even though he is safe, the horrors of war still haunt him. This emphasises the continued isolation from real pain.

‘A strangers features faintly start to twist before his eyes, a half formed ghost’ ‘He remembers the cries of this mans wife’

The suffering that the photographer encounters are very personal and affect him mentally even though he doesn’t know the victims.

‘A hundred agonies in black and white’ ‘ The readers eyeballs prick with tears between rhetorical bath and pre-lunch beers’

The poem eventually shifts from horrors of the pain to normalisation of the actions of war, demonstrating how constant exposure can desensitise people to war tragedies.

‘From the aeroplane he stares impassively’ ‘He earns his living and they do not care’

Eventually the conflict gets normalised and people stop caring. The readers, editors and journalists become impassive to the trauma and victims lose the hope of help.