Poppies

• Jane Weir

  • born in 1963
  • In Northern Ireland during 1980 - experienced the troubles
  • grew up in Italy and England
  • as a poet - principle motive is language itself - its mutability in representing both abstract and real
  • mother of two boys
• context

  • Poppies - Armistice Sunday (marks the end of WW1) - so people remember those who we lost during the war
  • the poem comes from a collection of poems Carol Ann Duffy made 2009 - Exit wounds - poems about war and the suffering it caused
  • Woman's prospective - rare - she wanted to show how she felt if her son's went to war - shows the fear parents have when letting their children go = anxiety, pain of loss, fear
• structure

  • dramatic monologue - she's writing in character not from experience - addresses the silent listener - 'you' - soldier/son - soldiers/sons silence emphasises the pain caused for the mother, shows how the son is gone
  • free verse - no organisation or structure - shows how the mother's mind has gone to chaos now her sons off fighting in the war
  • different length stanza's - chaos, no structure
  • enjambment - stanza 2, 3 - illustrates chaos
  • caesura - makes reader stop and think about the mothers feelings
• the chaotic structure

  • reflects the chaotic impact war has
  • mothers life has no structure she is constantly worrying about her son
  • life has no control no that their son is gone
• enjambment 


  'all my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt slowly melting'

  enjambment between stanza's two and three

  she is grieving - has to let it slowly think in - break in structure illustrates the break in the mothers heart (emotionally)

  ordinary images with a deep meaning - the mother cannot speak, she is still remembering how she prepared her sons uniform

  constant imagery of home and conflict - mother is overwhelmed
• imagery of war and conflict


  'spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias '

  'spasm' - injuries where you can't control limbs, painful

  'paper red' - poppy

  'disrupting' - ruining the scene, rude

  'blockade' - isolated, closed off space

  'yellow bias ' - pinning the poopy onto the blazer

  she is saying the red poppy ruins the boys blazer - the blazer reminds her of when he was home - now she see's the poppy as ruining it as she associates it with what took him away from her
• 'Sellotape bandaged around my hand'


  'bandaged' - implies injury, wounds, suffering

  she's de-fluffing the uniform

  'Sellotape' - sticky, sticks two things together, shows how the woman hold's onto the memory as it sticks her to her son
• 'reinforcements of scarf, gloves'


  'reinforcements' - noun - back up, help, suggests danger, vulnerability

  'scarf, gloves' - wrapping up warm - weather kills most soldiers so she is telling him to wrap up warm, - in a grave yard - it is said to go colder when you are among the spirits
• 'I was brave'


  'I' - personal pronoun - she had to be brave for her son - mother instincts kicked in

  'was' - past tense - she's reflecting on how she had to let her son go

  'brave' - expected to be the soldier - mother is saying it - shows the impact of those who aren't fighting
• 'the world overflowing like a treasure chest'


  simile

  mother is speaking but from the soldiers point of view

  'world overflowing' - outside of home - excited to leave home and explore - contrasts parents fear of letting him go

  'treasure chest' - valuable - not realistic - doesn't realise the hardships of war (propaganda in world war 1 - people lied so men would join the army) - not making controlled decisions - excited to leave home