Poppies- Jane Weir

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  • Created by: lucyaa
  • Created on: 22-04-17 16:17
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  • Poppies- Jane Weir
    • Language
      • she uses war language to represent the violence of his death.
        • "spasms"
        • "disrupting a blockade"
          • poppies disrupt the  war- but mother is still shut out.
        • "without reinforcements"
          • mother doesnt wear coat to show how her son wasn't protected.
      • sewing imagery shows the mothers role.
        • "All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt"
          • felt is compressed and a dead texture.
        • "my stomach busy making tucks, darts, pleats"
          • stomach is in knots.
    • Background
      • Born in 1963, lived in Italy +  England + Ireland (during troubled 1980s)
      • poem is a dramatic monologue speaking from a mothers perspective during the weir.
      • poppies resemble armistice day.
    • Past
      • mother recalls memories
        • "yellow bias binding around your blazer"
          • school blazer- uniform takes soon away (enforced by alliteration)
        • "I rounded up as many white cat hairs"
          • innocent domestic happiness is powerfully contrasted by war.
          • "sellotape bandaged around my hand"
            • bandage represents how the mother is hurt whilst reflecting the wounded.
        • "play at being eskimos"
          • wants to keep him a child.
    • form + structure
      • 4 clear stanzas shows how the mother has tried to stay strong and move forward.
      • caesura (breaks in the middle of 19 lines).
        • inner emotion of narrator who tries to be calm but is breaking in sadness inside.
        • poem is like a story- flipping between present and past.
          • "Three days before"
          • "Before you left"
          • "After you'd gone"
          • "this is where it has led me"
          • ends with her suspended on hill between present and past.
            • "your playground voice catching on the wind"
    • Grief
      • imagery
        • "sellotape bandaged around my hand"
          • bandage represents how the mother is hurt whilst reflecting the wounded.
        • "steeled the softening of my face"
          • tries not to cry when leaving for school/war.
        • "without a winter coat or reinforcements"
          • no protection from her emotions.
    • metaphor and symbolism
      • song bird represents the mother letting her son free.
        • "released a song bird from its cage"
      • bird becomes a dove- the symbol of peace (only when he's dead)
        • "the dove pulled freely against the sky"
      • the son is leaving and is excited.
        • "the world overflowing like a treasure chest"
        • "intoxicated"
          • toxic resembles the battlefield.

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Ninafarrell

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