Poppies

• Who was poppies written by?

  Jane weir
• "spasms of paper red disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer."
• "spasms of paper red disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer."

  • "Spasms": metaphor- involuntary and painful contractions in this action of pinning a poppy
  • "Paper red" poppies : symbolises violence, war and grief/ mourning experience by those at home
  • Blazer could be a school uniform or a military uniform
  • "Blockade" military term for ships blocking energy ports: causes death/ destruction, suggests he could be shut out of his life already
  • Introduces an extended metaphor: compares going to war to the mundane action of going to school
• "sellotape bandages around my hand"
• "sellotape bandaged around my hand"

  • mundane lint brush= emotional wounds to speaker caused by this loss / farewell
  • Metaphor to suggest costs of war , part of a larger semantic field of violence/ injury
• "steeled the softening of my face"
• "steeled the softening of my face"

  • Metaphor to suggest costs of war- part of a larger semantic field of violence
  • Suppressed worry/ sorrow and appears stoic= face become a weapon. Peaceful lives invaded by instruments of war
• "the world overflowing like a treasure chest"
• "the world overflowing like a treasure chest"

  • Simile: life is an adventure ahead; a place full of riches and delight he's about to discover and enjoy
  • Figurative reading: enthusiasm represents patriotic fervour that young soldiers brought to battle
• "leaned against it (war memorial) like a wishbone"
• "leaned against it (war memorial) like a wishbone"

  • Hope.
  • Simile: she is frail, fragile and breakable
  • Wants to sacrifice herself to bring her son home. Depth of anxiety and grief as child goes to war
• "I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind"
• "I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind"

  • Completes extended metaphor of going to school
  • Or- child has died in battle and their voice has become a memory
  • She is a mouner rather than a mother on a weekday trip
  • Or she is a mother mourning the loss of childhood and presence, preying for safe return?
• This poem focuses on the anxiety and grief parents may feel in knowing they can no longer protect their children from the violence of the world
• While soldiers may seem captivated by war's opportunity for glory, the speaker here focused on the universal impact that war has on family's left behind
• Aside from the trauma of a wartime farewell, weir also examens the bonds of motherhood , and the emotional conflict that can arise in this relationship as a child seeks freedom