Mametz Wood

• context/content/structure

  Located in France

  In the Battle of Somme in ww1 the 38th Welsh division was ordered to capture the wood- they did but 4,000 Welsh soldiers died

  Owen Sheers wrote the poem in 2005 and was struck how the soldiers bravery and sacrifice was never acknowledged

  wrote the poem to give them a voice

  most of ww1 was fought on farm land

  poem describes French farmers ploughing up bones of young- mass graves are uncovered

  the tone is respectful and sombre- serious

  it is written in tercets- 3 line stanzas
• "Mametz Wood" - first quote


  refers to location rather than soldiers- perhaps symbolic of loss of identity and the lack of recognition of bravery
• "The wasted young" - second quote 


  Adjective "wasted" reinforces pointless loss of potential

  noun "young" highlights powerlessness and innocence- emphasises terrible loss of potential
• "A chit of bone, the China plate of a shoulder blade" - third quote 


  emphasises how fragile they were

  metaphor "China plate" shows how easy they were destroyed -bullets tore and shattered their body's

  shows how precious they were
• "Broken birds egg of a skull" - fourth quote 


  metaphor "birds egg" implies lives only just begun - they are fragile

  lives were cut down/ destroyed

  alliteration of plosives (b) emphasises their violent deaths
• "As if they notes they had sung have only now... slipped from their absent tongues"- last quote 


  "notes" allude/link to the singing of Welsh choirs

  "absent tongues" until now soldiers didn't have a voice they were powerless but Sheers have them an identity