Power & Conflict Poetry Revision...deaths caused, the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy asked a number of writers to compose poems, including Jane Weir. Kamikaze During the Second World

Power & Conflict PoetryRevision

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The Messages of the Poems

PoemDual Coding

Draw an image to represent the poem

What is the poet’s message?

Ozymandias

London

Extract from the Prelude

My Last Duchess

Charge of the Light Brigade

Exposure

Storm on the Island

PoemDual Coding

Draw an image to represent the poem

What is the poet’s message?

Bayonet Charge

Remains

Poppies

War Photographer

Tissue

The Emigree

Checking out me History

Kamikaze

Anthology Poetry Context

War Photographer

The poem comes from Duffy’s friendship with Don McCullin and Philip Jones Griffiths, two well-respected photographers who specialised in war photography.

Duffy is fascinated by what makes someone do such a job, and how they feel about being in situations where a choice often has to be made between recording horrific events and helping.

Remains

This poem is part of a small collection of poems written for ‘the Not Dead’. This term refers to the ex-service men and women who have survived wars and are now dealing with its after-effects. Each of these poems focuses on a flashback scene that the ex-soldier has struggled to forget.

‘Remains’ was written for a soldier who served in Basra, Iraq.

Charge of the Light Brigade

Tennyson wrote "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in a few minutes on December 2, 1854.

It is based on the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War which was fought from 1853 to 1856.

On 25 October 1854, Lord Raglan decided to attack the Russians. He sent an order but it was fatally misinterpreted and 673 Light Brigade cavalrymen were sent charging down the valley with Russian guns all around. Between 100 and 200 soldiers are thought to have died.

Storm on the Island

Heaney’s father was a farmer in rural County Derry and much of Heaney's poetry is about the countryside and farm life of his childhood.

Storm on the Island could be a metaphor for the political storm that raged across Northern Ireland in the second half of the twentieth century. The storm pummelling the island in the poem could represent the violence in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Poppies

The poem is set in the present day but reaches right back to the beginning of the Poppy Day tradition.

Armistice Sunday began as a way of marking the end of the First World War in 1918. It was set up so people could remember the hundreds and thousands of ordinary men who had been killed in the First World War. Today, the event is used to remember soldiers of all wars who have died since then.

When Poppies was written, British soldiers were still dying in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a way of trying to understand the suffering that deaths caused, the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy asked a number of writers to compose poems, including Jane Weir.

Kamikaze

During the Second World War, the term 'kamikaze' was used for Japanese fighter pilots who were sent on suicide missions. They were expected to crash their warplanes into enemy warships.

The word 'kamikaze‘ literally translates as 'divine wind'.

Exposure

Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 and died in 1918, just one week before the end of WW1.

He joined the war in October 1915, but, after some traumatic events on the battlefield, he was sent to hospital to be treated for shell-shock.

He wrote poetry throughout his time in the war and they are famous for their vivid imagery and shocking truths about the reality of war.

Anthology Poetry Context

London

London was published in 1793, four years after the outbreak of the French Revolution. Is Blake calling for the poor people of London to rise up and seize power?

London was becoming more and more industrial. Blake expresses his concerns on impact for city and its people. .

Tissue

Imtiaz Dharker (1954-) is a contemporary poet who was born in Pakistan and grew up in Scotland. She has written five collections of poetry and often deals with themes of identity, the role of women in contemporary society and the search for meaning.

In her other poems, Dharker has written about the way she values things which may seem to be trivial or easily lost or destroyed.

This poem is about the possible power of something as thin and fragile as paper.

My Last Duchess

Robert Browning was born in England but lived in Italy for many years. He was fascinated by the Italian Renaissance (14th – 16th Centuries) when arts flourished.

My Last Duchess was published in 1842

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) is one of the most famous poets in all of English literature. He was one of a group of poets who became known as The Romantics.

He came from a wealthy family, but was expelled from university for writing about atheism (not believing in God) which led to him to fall out with his father who disinherited him.

Shelley was well known as a 'radical' during his lifetime and some people think Ozymandias reflects this side of his character. Although it is about the remains of a statue of Ozymandias (another name for the Egyptian pharaoh Rameses II) it can be read as a criticism of people or systems that become huge and believe themselves to be invincible.

The Emigree

The city is never specified, and it could be any one of many places throughout history where people have had to go into exile because of a change of regime or natural disaster.

Recent examples might be Tehran, Damascus, Aleppo, Beirut, Baghdad, Sarajevo

Extract from The Prelude

Part of a much longer poem on ‘the growth of a poet’s mind’—‘the child is father of the man’: events in childhood shape us as adults

An example of poetry of the Romantic Movement—it’s a revelation, an epiphany, an example of what Wordsworth called ‘spots of time’

The incident took place on Ullswater, in the Lake District where Wordsworth grew up—‘The Boat Stealing Incident’

Checking out Me History

John Agard was born in Guyana, a Caribbean country in South America, but he moved to Britain in 1977.

His poem examines how British history focuses only on British people.

Bayonet Charge

Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was born in the Yorkshire countryside and served in the RAF for two years.

The themes of the countryside, human history and mythology therefore already deeply influenced his imagination by the time he started writing poetry as a student.

How does the context of each poem add to the meaning/ message?

War Photographer

Charge of Light Brigade

Poppies

Extract from Prelude

My Last Duchess

Exposure

Storm on the Island

Tissue

The Emigree

Bayonet Charge

Remains

Kamikaze

London

Ozymandias

Checking out my History

Structure in Poetry• Structure in poetry is very important. It can add a lot of meaning to the poem.• Find two poems which have these structural features and explain what the effect is.

Structural Feature

Poem Quote Effect of this structural feature?

Enjambment

Caesura

Repetition

Comparing Poems

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Exposure War Photographer Poppies Kamikaze

Rem

ain

sEx

po

sure

War

Ph

oto

grap

her

Pop

pie

sKa

mik

aze

How can you compare the two poems? Consider: Language Structure Context Meaning

Comparing Poems

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My Last Duchess OzymandiasChecking out my

HistoryLondon

Tiss

ue

My

Last

Du

ches

sO

zym

and

ias

Ch

ecki

ng

ou

t m

y H

isto

ryLo

nd

on

How can you compare the two poems? Consider: Language Structure Context Meaning

Key Quotes: OzymandiasAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message

of the poem?2. Zoom in on at least 2 words.3. Add technique for those

words.4. Link to themes.5. Include context.6. Add any possible notes on

structure.

“boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.”

“a shattered visage lies”

87

Key Quotes: LondonAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse”

“The mind-forged manacles I hear”

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Key Quotes: Extract from The PreludeAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“a huge peak, black and huge,As if with voluntary power instinct,Upreared its head”

“Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping inPushed from the shore”

89

Key Quotes: My Last DuchessAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“She thanked men—good! but thankedSomehow—I know not how—as if she rankedMy gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name”

“But to myself they turned (since none puts byThe curtain I have drawn for you, but I)”

90

Key Quotes: Charge of the Light BrigadeAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“When can their glory fade?O the wild charge they made!“

“Cannon to right of them,Cannon to left of them,Cannon behind them”

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Key Quotes: ExposureAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us...Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent...”

“Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow”

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Key Quotes: Storm on the IslandAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“We are bombarded by the empty air”

“you can listen to the thing you fearForgetting that it pummels your house too”

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Key Quotes: Bayonet ChargeAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“He was runningLike a man who has jumped up in the dark and runsListening between his footfalls for the reasonOf his still running”

“The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eyeSweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest, -”

94

Key Quotes: RemainsAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“Dream, and he’s torn apart by a dozen rounds.And the drink and the drugs won’t flush him out”

“I see every round as it rips through his life –I see broad daylight on the other side”

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Key Quotes: PoppiesAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“All my wordsflattened, rolled, turned into felt,

slowly melting.”

“Sellotape bandaged around my hand,I rounded up as many white cat hairsas I could”

96

Key Quotes: War PhotographerAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“He remembers the criesof this man’s wife, how he sought approvalwithout words to do what someone must”

“spools of suffering set out in ordered rows”

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Key Quotes: TissueAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“find a way to trace a grand design

with living tissue, raise a structurenever meant to last”

“Maps too. The sun shines throughtheir borderlines”

98

Key Quotes: The EmigreeAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“ They accuse me of absence, they circle me.They accuse me of being dark in their free city.”

“It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants,but I am branded by an impression of sunlight”

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Key Quotes: Checking out my HistoryAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“Dem tell me bout de dish ran away with de spoonbut dem never tell me bout Nanny de maroon”

“Bandage up me eye with me own historyBlind me to me own identity”

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Key Quotes: KamikazeAnnotate each quote:1. What does it suggest message



structure.

“till gradually we too learnedto be silent, to live as thoughhe had never returned”

“in a figure of eight,the dark shoals of fishesflashing silver

101

Unseen PoetryRevision

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Unseen Poem 1: SMILE

Fantasy of an African BoySuch a peculiar lotwe are, we peoplewithout money, in daylongyearlong sunlight, knowingmoney is somewhere, somewhere.

Everybody says it’s bigbigger brain bother now,money. Such millions and millionsof us don’t manage at allwithout it, like war going on.

And we can’t eat it. Yetwithout it our heads alonestay big, as lots and lots do,coming from nowhere joyful,going nowhere happy.

We can’t drink it up. Yetwithout it we shrivel when smalland stop foreverwhere we stopped, as lots and lots do.

We can’t read money for books.Yet without it we don’tread, don’t write numbers,don’t open gates in other countries,as lots and lots never do.

We can’t use money to bandagesores, can’t pound itto powder for sick eyesand sick bellies. Yet withoutit, flesh melts from our bones.

Such walled-round gentlemenoverseas minding money! Suchbigtime gentlemen, body guardedbecause of too much respectand too many wishes on them:

too many wishes, everywhere,wanting them to let gomagic of money, and let it flyaway, everywhere, day and night,just like dropped leaves in wind!

James Berry

In ‘Fantasy of an African Boy,’ how does the poet present ideas about the significance of money? [24 marks]

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How many stanzas? Rhyme scheme? Enjambement or caesura? Effect of structure?

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What is the poem about? What does the title suggest? Is there a message/lesson? Is there an overall theme/idea?

I

What pictures do you get in your mind when you read the poem? Any metaphors/similes/personification? If so, what image do they create? Why do you think these images have been included in the poem?

L

Any interesting words used in the poem to create an image/idea? Explore the connotations/suggestions of the language. Make sure you include language devices/methods.

E

What is the effect of the poem? What does the poem make you F.I.T. (feel/imagine/think)? What opinion does it show from the poet? What is the poet trying to show us?

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The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

In ‘The Road Not Taken,’ how does the poet present ideas about the importance of making decisions? [24 marks]

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105


An Old WomanAn old woman grabshold of your sleeveand tags along.

She wants a fifty paise coin.She says she will take youto the horseshoe shrine.

You’ve seen it already.She hobbles along anywayand tightens her grip on your shirt.

She won’t let you go.You know how old women are.They stick to you like a burr.

You turn around and face herwith an air of finality.You want to end the farce.

When you hear her say,‘What else can an old woman doon hills as wretched as these?’

You look right at the sky.Clear through the bullet holesshe has for her eyes.

And as you look onthe cracks that begin around her eyesspread beyond her skin.

And the hills crack.And the temples crack.And the sky falls

With a plate-glass clatterAround the shatterproof cronewho stands alone.

And you are reducedto so much small changein her hand.

Arun Kolatkar

In ‘An Old Woman,’ how does the poet create sympathy for the old woman? [24 marks]

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Blessing

The skin cracks like a pod.There never is enough water.

Imagine the drip of it,the small splash, echoin a tin mug,the voice of a kindly god.

Sometimes, the sudden rushof fortune. The municipal pipe bursts,silver crashes to the groundand the flow has founda roar of tongues. From the huts,a congregation : every man womanchild for streets aroundbutts in, with pots,brass, copper, aluminium,plastic buckets,frantic hands,

and naked childrenscreaming in the liquid sun,their highlights polished to perfection,flashing light,as the blessing singsover their small bones.

Imtiaz Dharker

In ‘Blessing,’ how does the poet present ideas about poverty and wealth? [24 marks]

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Still I RiseYou may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may trod me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?Why are you beset with gloom?’Cause I walk like I've got oil wellsPumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?Bowed head and lowered eyes?Shoulders falling down like teardrops,Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?Don't you take it awful hard’Cause I laugh like I've got gold minesDiggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?Does it come as a surpriseThat I dance like I've got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shameI riseUp from a past that’s rooted in painI riseI'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that’s wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.

Maya Angelou

In ‘Still I Rise,’ how does the poet present ideas about determination and injustice? [24 marks]

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Documents

Power & Conflict Poetry Revision...deaths caused, the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy asked a number of writers to compose poems, including Jane Weir. Kamikaze During the Second World