Poetry Quotes (2nd half)

• "embarked at sunrise...full of powerful incantations...one way journey into history" - Kamikaze

  Land of the rising sun

  Metaphor for soldiers' oath + brainwashing of propaganda

  earning way into being honourable

  euphemism for death
• "little fishing boats strung out like bunting" - Kamikaze

  irony - should've been focusing on large warships but instead small boats catch pilot's eye

  pretty imagery - symbolic of life before war

  simile - celebration, life worth more than sacrifice
• "built cairns of pearl-grey pebbles to see whose withstood longest...bringing their father's boat safe" - Kamikaze

  juxtaposition of innocent childhood memories with war

  enjambment - caught up in childhood memories

  doesn't want children to go through pain of losing him
• "And though he came back my mother never spoke again in his presence" - Kamikaze

  volta - symbolises social death + change in speaker

  more empathy + pain - effects of war on family
• "only we children chattered and laughed till gradually we too learned to be silent" - Kamikaze

  conforming to society + learned behaviours overrides original empathy

  emotive - pilot lost everything he originally lived for
• "he must have wondered which had been the better way to die" - Kamikaze

  destructiveness of patriotism - either way story is tragic

  ironic - didn't actually die, shows tough decision faced by pilot
• "Bandage up me eye with me own history" - COMH

  symbolism - hiding him from the truth

  ironic - bandage used to repair but instead connotes damage of marginalisation of black history

  brainwashed + forced to fit into European agenda
• "dem tell me bout Dick Wittington and he cat But Toussaint L'Ouverture no dem never tell me bout dat" - COMH

  pantomime - European history trivial

  double negative - highlights what's missing, assertive tone
• "Dem tell me bout de dish ran away with de spoon but dem never tell me bout nanny de maroon" - COMH

  rhyme - silliness of British history, real events discarded to extend Eurocentric view

  reflects tradition of reciting poems out loud
• "fire-woman struggle hopeful stream to freedom river" - COMH

  nature imagery - spirituality + emphasises importance to black people which white people ignore

  representative of hope + what they had to go through to get freedom, yet their history is diminished
• "a healing star among the wounded a yellow sunrise to the dying" - COMH

  wider universe imagery - light, hope + warmth brought to people

  extended metaphor - important figures don't get recognition due to their race

  enjambment - lasting impact + refuse to let this memory be diminished
• "But now I checking out me history I carving out me own identity" - COMH

  'I' personal pronoun - shifting focus to individuality + breaking away from Eurocentric ideas

  connotations of permanence - refusal to be silenced

  going to persevere so it doesn't remain concealed
• "pain itself the image of agony" - Remains

  semantic field of gore - evokes PTSD

  emphasises disturbing scenes of war soldiers are expected to react to
• "His blood shadow remains on the street I walk past it week after week" - Remains

  Macbeth reference - can never forget the guilt, blood on their hands, questioning own morality

  Enjambment - constantly in mind, everything reminds him of his experiences
• "End of story, except not really" - Remains

  volta - still suffering even after war has ended

  can't escape thoughts
• "probably armed, possibly not" - Remains

  can't live with the uncertainty of the morality of their actions

  repetition - plays on their mind + can't accept it's impossible to know
• "the drinks and the drugs won't flush him out - he's here in my head when I close my eyes" - Remains

  reality of trying to cope

  caesura - lack of clear thought

  can't return to normal life
• "His bloody life in my bloody hands" - Remains

  literal, gory imagery to emphasise brutality

  expletive - frustration + emotions that feel impossible to manage, perhaps alluding to futility of war

  used in documentary by soldier
• "I see every round as it rips through his life" - Remains

  hyperbole - morals important to him, the image has traumatised him

  grotesque + graphic reality of war

  metaphor - death of his true self as well as the literal death of the man
• "There once was a country...I left it as a child but my memory is sunlight-clear" - Emigrée

  caesura - reader must process it as gone

  light imagery - can't recognise flaws when reminiscing or she sees the truth behind a facade of danger
• "time rolls its tanks and the frontiers rise between us, close like waves" - Emigrée

  violent imagery - reflective of how others sees the city

  time personified as enemy + tries to harm her perception - slight acceptance of change
• "like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar" - Emigrée

  simile - identity disappearing, torn between her current place + her homeplace

  trying to hold on despite disappearance

  hollow - alternate perspective of hope disappearing
• "banned by the state but I can't get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight." - Emigrée

  prejudice against certain countries due to political situations

  mother tongue remains precious despite circumstances + stands proud with her culture

  synesthesia - increases vividness
• "but my city comes to me in its own white plane" - Emigrée

  personified as innocent + pure - helps her survive amidst discrimination + identity crises

  risk of memories slipping away like the wind
• "they accuse me of absence, they circle me...they mutter death" - Emigrée

  alternate perspective - addresses reality + memories can't protect her from terror, displacement etc.

  volta - feeling world is against her + suggestion of racism, juxtaposing with previous carefree attitude

  indirect pronoun 'them' - such opinions don't matter as they aren't from important people
• "Paper that lets the light shine through, this is what could alter things" - Tissue

  symbol of truth

  misinterpreting words/religion

  nature holds true meaning of life + should be appreciated more
• "Pages smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention" - Tissue

  closer you pay attention = more you see truth

  list of 3 - importance of paper for humans, documenting whole lives
• "If buildings were paper, I might feel their drift, how easily they fall away" - Tissue

  representative of human capability - semantic field of impermanence

  buildings sturdy but war in all corners of world

  nothing meant to last + things should be 'let go' of more
• "what was paid by credit card might fly our lives like paper kites" - Tissue

  simile - consumerism controls too much of our lives; life should be carefree + about enjoying yourself

  commerce records shouldn't matter + world built around the wrong things
• "shapes that pride can make find a way to trace a grand design with living tissue" - Tissue

  symbols of human power + hubris we have attached too much meaning to

  human life much more complex than any building, sun continues to shine even when man-made things break
• "turned into your skin" - Tissue

  extended metaphor throughout poem - vulnerability of life compared to paper + diminished

  volta - lasting impact to make reader contemplate how they will approach life henceforth
• "Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass." - WP

  plosive + caesura - mimics gunfire

  biblical allusion - absorbed in nature + natural cycle of life

  abrupt to deliver emphasis
• "to the fields which don't explode beneath the feet of running children" - WP

  contrasting ordinary problems with real problems - realising some things taken for granted

  usually implies innocence but instead it's something horrible

  reference to Napalm girl photo
• "A stranger's features faintly start to twist before his eyes, a half-formed ghost" - WP


  ambiguous - literal or figurative of person in pain

  stranger - people don't care about the stories behind the photos

  personalises suffering
• "sought approval without words to do what someone must" - WP

  justifying under excuse of informing the masses - voyeurism

  trying to distance himself from actions
• "A hundred agonies in black and white from which his editor will pick out five or six" - WP

  strong suffering commodified + pain diminished

  used as entertainment rather to inform
• "I was brave...the world overflowing like a treasure chest" - Poppies

  irony - not going to war but struggling to hold emotions together

  simile - tries to see war from son's perspective but her worry overrides this

  symbolic of letting go
• "play at being eskimos like when we were little" - Poppies

  anecdote - reminding herself of good times during times of despair

  symbolism - innocence lost too quickly

  memories only thing left of son
• "my stomach busy making tucks" - Poppies

  nervous + physical feelings of anxiety

  metaphor - trying to repair life + adapt as well as hope

  can't protect her son in war

  coping mechanism
• "leaned against [the memorial] like a wishbone" - Poppies

  simile - distance between son due to uncertainty

  structure shift - any hope in beginning disappeared

  only feels connection to son with memorial - enigma of whether he is dead or not\