Anthology poetry

• Afternoons by Philip Larkin
• This is a melancholy poem, which reflects on the subject of marriage.The poem deals with Larkin's view on young mothers watching their children playing in a playground and he concludes that marrying young leads to the mothers losing their identities. Larkin's description of young mothers taking their children to a playground seems normal but the narrator's point of view on life is expressed. What seems like an ordinary, everyday occurrence highlights the theme of change and how it cannot be avoided, like the passing of time.
• Title "Afternoons"

  Suggests the end of the day and time passing
• Language


  Suggests there is little meaning in the lives of the "young mothers" – "hollow" and "assemble" suggest routine and boredom creating a sense of emptiness
• Idea of time passing

  "their beauty has thickened" suggests aging
• Last line "to the side of their own lives"


  Echoes the idea of "setting free their children" from the first stanza. There is the implication that their lives are ruled by their children who "expect to be taken home."
• Philip Larkin's poetry celebrates the ordinary details of day to day life
• Larkin never married, had children or even left the UK in his whole life
• Afternoons


  The title suggests that the young mothers are in the 'afternoons' of their lives where children have taken away their identities and their lives are not their own
• The leaves fall in ones and twos From trees bordering The new recreation ground.
• In the hollows of afternoons Young mothers assemble At swing and sandpit Setting free their children.
• Behind them, at intervals, Stand husbands in skilled trades, An estateful of washing, And the albums, lettered Our Wedding, lying Near the television:
• Before them, the wind Is ruining their courting-places (But the lovers are all in school), And their children, so intent on Finding more unripe acorns, Expect to be taken home.
• Their beauty has thickened. Something is pushing them To the side of their own lives.
• a ruler.
• Ozymandias: 'I met a traveller from an antique land,'
• Statue


  • Vast but trunkless - shows his power may have been huge but there was no substance to it, it soon faded away
• The verb "stretch"


  Suggests that nature will outlast man and humanity – our place on this earth is only temporary and is no match for our natural environment and time
• Ozymandias: 'Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
• The nouns 'desert' and 'sand'


  Show the isolation of the statue in its environment – the sands surround this one example of humanity. Perhaps a civilisation has been destroyed?
• The speaker begins by introducing someone they met – most of the poem is told through that person's story.
• The verbs 'sunk' and 'shattered'


  Show nature has eroded and destroyed this symbol of human power. This suggests the natural environment will always outlast any human settlement, reminding us of our own mortality; even the most powerful kings will turn to dust.
• The title refers to Ramses II, an Egyptian Pharaoh who was known for being a tyrant.
• Mametz Wood was one of the bloodiest battles of World War One. As part of the first Battle of the Somme in 1916, soldiers of the Welsh division were ordered to take Mametz Wood, the largest area of trees on the battlefield.
• The 38th Welsh Division lost 4,000 men during the attack which lasted five days.
• The poet Owen Sheers grew up in Wales and wrote the poem in 2005 as he felt their bravery and sacrifice was never really acknowledged
• The poem's structure


  • Regular three-line stanzas almost reflecting the neat linear pattern of a ploughed field. However, at times the length of the lines change, with longer lines breaking up the neat form. This disrupted pattern could reflect the 'chits of bone' rising out of the ground and disrupting our attempts to forget the past.
• The first part of the poem focuses on the land itself before the focus shifts to the bones and dead soldiers in the final stanzas. The concluding stanza brings all the elements together
• The noun "mosaic"


  Suggests the intricate and beautiful nature of the human body
• The adjective "wasted"


  Suggests the young soldiers lost their lives before they had really started living.
• The opening lines emphasise how deadly the battle was as they found the remains for "years afterwards".
• The verb "tended"

  Personifies the land, suggesting that the farmers tried to care for the wounded surface that was so badly damaged by the war.
• "A chit"

  Is a short note and indicates that these pieces of bone contain a message for us about the brutalities of war.
• The metaphors of a "china plate" and "broken bird's egg"

  Emphasise how fragile and precious the human body is.
• The command "to walk, not run" creates a cynical tone to the poem - the poet clearly felt the orders sent the soldiers to their deaths.
• The poem switches to the present tense

  Makes the tragedy seem more immediate and real for the reader. The horrors of war are still being felt today and remind us of the fatal consequences of conflict.
• The phrase "linked arm in arm"


  Suggests the soldiers were close as a division and stayed together as a team, even in death.
• The noun "sentinel"


  Links back to soldiers standing watch all night and suggests the land cannot rest because of the horrors it has seen in war. The simile "like a wound working a foreign body" suggests the land is trying to cleanse itself of the damage that has been done.
• The final stanza creates a haunting tone. The adjective "absent" suggests the men's voices were lost in battle – they were silenced by their generals and then the machine guns. Only now, "with this unearthing", is the truth emerging.
• William Wordsworth was one of the first and most influential of the Romantic era