Poppies

• AO3:

  • Jane Weir, born in 1963, grew up in Italy and Northern England. She has continued to absorb different cultural experiences throughout her life, living in Northern Ireland during the troubled 1980s.
  • The poem is set in the present day but reaches back to the beginning of the Poppy Day tradition.
  • When poppies was writte, British soldiers were still dying in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a way to understand the suffering that death caused, Carol Ann duffy asked writers to compose poems, including Jane Weir.
• Overview:

  The poem is about the nature of grief. The speaker is a mother who is speaking directly to her son who has gone off to the war, which she struggles to come to terms with. The poem demonstrated the inner emotion of a narrator who is trying to remain calm and composed but is breaking with sadness inside.
• "I wanted to graze my nose across the tip of your nose, play at being Eskimos like we did when you were little."

  • Past tense 'wanted'

  The speaker is longing for her son to be a child again. She wants to nurture him and protect hum like she did when he was a child. However, this is contrasted with harsh reality that he is going off to war and she realises the risks that he may encounter.
• "After you'd gone I went into your bedroom, released a song bird from it's cage".

  • Metaphor
  • Symbolism

  The “song bird” could be a metaphor for the mother’s emotions. When he is out of sight, she can finally express her true feelings and the hurt/worry that she is feeling. It is evident that she is in distress when he leaves to go to war.
• "I traced the inscriptions on the war memorial, leaned against it like a wishbone."

  • Simele

  This quotation serves as a reminder of the risks the speaker’s son faces. The reference to a “wishbone” demonstrates that the mother is vulnerable and fragile.
• Aspects of Power and Conflict:

  • Conflict of the mother's feelings towards her son growing up.
  • The gried od those left behind when a loved one is killed in war
  • The impulse to protect a grown child.
• Poems that can be linked:

  • Kamikaze
  • Exposure