War Photographer

• AO3:

  • 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 has to be made between recording horrific events and helping.
• Overview:

  Written in third person, the poem describes a photographer in his darkroom as he develops prints from his latest job in the field. As the images which slop in his trays emerge, he is filled with horror at the memories of the violent scenes he has witnessed and photographed. His hands shake, as Duffy uses powerful imagery and effective contrast to explore the conflict in war and conflict within himself, and in the wider world of media reporting. Written in four stanzas, each of six lines with a regular rhyme scheme, seems to be imposing order into the chaotic world of war.
• "Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows".

  • Silibance
  • Metaphor

  The use of silibance highlights this image, which creates a suggestion of graves or bodies 'in ordered rows'. There is also contrast in this image: 'spools of suffering' which seems chaotic, yet in 'ordered rows'.
• "Tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers".

  • Internal rhyme

  Duffy uses internal rhyme in this poem in a few places, as a way of exporing the war photographer's internal feelings of conflict. We see how, for newspaper readers, seeing the images only affects them for a short while and their lives continue as normal, unlike the victims of war.
• "A hundred agonies in black-and-white".

  • Colour imagery

  The scnes in his negatives are compard to 'agonies', a powerful noun to tell us about the pain of conflict. Because they are in 'black-and-white', they have been made to seem merely factual or simplified. She sems to be suggesting that their pain isnt given enough recognition.
• Aspects of Power and Conflict:

  • Conflict in war - The horrors are explored with words like 'blood stained', or the 'cries' of a wife and also the imagery.
  • Conflict of the war photographer as he grapples with what he does for a living.
• Poems that can be linked:

  • Remains