Poppies

• State the context of Poppies.

  Weir wrote Poppies as part of a 2009 Armistice Day commission marking the deaths of British soldiers in modern wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. Weir’s poem shifts focus from the battlefield to the emotional trauma of those left behind—especially women and mothers. Deeply personal and intimate, Poppies uses domestic and textile imagery to reflect the silent grief, maternal sacrifice, and lasting pain caused by conflict. By blurring memory, imagination, and reality, Weir exposes how war permanently alters everyday life, even for those who never fight.
• What themes are in Poppies?

  1. Effects of Conflict
  2. Loss and Absence
  3. Memory
  4. Fear
  5. Identity
  6. Individual Experience
• State the language, structure, and form of Poppies.

  1. Lanuage: war imagery, domestic imagery, use of senses, tactile
  2. Structure: irregular stanza lengths, enjambment, caesura, chronological but fragmented as it alternates between present and past memories
  3. Form: free verse, first person narrative, long sentences, interior monologue as there is a blend of memory and imagination, the son has no voice to emphasise the emotional distance and absence.
• What is Poppies about?

  Poppies explores the silent suffering of a mother who has sent her son to war. Jane Weir uses domestic and textile imagery to express grief, love, and the deep emotional scars war leaves on families. The poem shows how memory and imagination blend in the aftermath of loss, and how a parent’s emotional conflict mirrors the physical conflict of war. It’s about absence, vulnerability, and the lasting emotional cost of conflict on those left behind.
• State quotes from Poppies.

  1. "spasms of paper red"
  2. "hoping to hear your playground voice"
  3. "released a song bird from its cage"
  4. "sellotape bandaged around my hand"
  5. "I wanted to graze my nose across the tip of your nose, play at being Eskimos"
  6. "like we did when you were little.
  7. "gelled blackthorns of your hair" is an allusion to Jesus
  8. "I was brave"
  9. "stealed the softening of my face" - the sibilance emphasises the fact she's trying to be brave and nonchalant.
  10. "hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind"
  11. "dove, sky, petals"
• What is textile imagery?

  Textile imagery uses fabric words like threads and cloths to show care and pain.

  "Sellotape bandaged around my hand”