kamikaze

• Beatric Garland was born in 1938 in Oxford
• After completing a degree in English literature, Garland worked in the NHS and still does work in the NHS as a clinician and teacher
• In 2001, Garland won the national poetry prize
• Kamakazi comes from the collection of fireworks, a 2013 collection of poetry that focuses on life and death in the natural world
• Kamakazi


  Japanese fighter pilots who were sent on suicide missions during World War II, crashing their planes into enemy warships
• Garland has a particular interest in what can motivate young men and these days young women too to give up their own lives in the service of a higher cause
• The poem Kamakazi explores the causes of fundamentalism or terrorism
• Kamakazi


  • The poem contains a mother talking to her children, who are talking about her father the kamakazi pilot and his father, so there are four generations in the poem
• The conflict in the poem is personal as well as national
• The cultural expectation and military expectation was that the kamakazi pilot would go and kill himself


  The inner conscience of the pilot was that he wanted to return home
• Kamakazi and Exposure


  In both poems, an active military man questions what he's doing, thinking back to life at home and the comforts of family, but in Kamakazi, thoughts of the beauty of nature and memories of home cause the pilot to turn around and return
• Structure of Kamakazi


  • Tight structure with 7 stanzas of 6 lines each, reflecting the tight control of the military and culture, but also contains free verse and enjambment, reflecting the pilot's desire for freedom and personal expression
• Language in Kamakazi


  • Extensive use of natural imagery, showing the beauty of nature and why the pilot should not want to deprive others of that pleasure
• The most powerful character in the poem is the tuna fish, not the kamakazi pilot
• The image of sunrise represents both the power of nature and the power of man (the military flag of Japan)
• Repetition in Kamakazi

  • Repetition of the word "safe", hinting at the pilot's mindset of wanting to return home safely to his children
• Narrator in Kamakazi


  • Starts in third person, then switches to first person direct speech, reflecting the speaker's own conflict and shame about her father's actions
• The ending of the poem is tragic, as the pilot finds himself metaphorically dead, wondering if literal death as a kamakazi would have been better than the emotional death he has experienced since returning home