English Lit - Poppies

• Poppies

  A dramatic monologue in which the poet wanted to write from the point of view of a mother and her relationship with her son
• The son has seemingly joined the army
• The poem begins with the mother noticing how three days before Remembrance Day people had already placed poppies on the graves of soldiers who died in the war
• This reminds her of how before her son left she had pinned a poppy onto his Blazer
• The mother remembers how she had smoothed down her son's collar and a not to look upset she had wanted to eskimo kiss him like when he was little and had to hold back from running her hands through his hair
• The mother followed a dove to a war memorial leaning on it hoping to hear her son's voice
• There's some ambiguity in this poem - is the Son dead, is he at War, but what really matters is what the poem tells us about power and conflict
• Poppies looks at the effects of War on those who are not themselves at War
• Jane Weir


  A textile designer as well as a poet, and that's important for this poem because there's a lot of imagery related to textiles in poppies
• Form of poppies


  A dramatic monologue, which means the poem focuses on a single person giving a speech to a silent listener, but the speaker is not the poet
• Poppies


  • Written in free verse, with stanzas of totally different lengths, and enjambment where sentences flow onto the next line and even the next stanza, as well as caesura where punctuation within the line makes the reader stop and pause
• The chaotic structure


  Reflects the chaotic impact of conflict on those at home, their life is chaos, the poem lacks control or organization because the mother is completely absorbed with the terrifying thoughts about her son
• Jane Weir: 'If one is to grieve one has to at some point let it dissolve'
• Language in poppies


  Uses very domestic everyday ordinary imagery but infuses it with rich metaphor and imagery of war and suffering, to suggest how those left behind at home in civilian life feel
• Domestic imagery infused with war/suffering

  • cellotape bandaged around my hand
  • I wanted to graze my nose against the tip of your nose
• The constant blending of domestic and Military language shows how the suffering of her son or the idea of her son in the conflict zone is constantly on the speaker's mind
• Poppies


  Forces the reader to think about the impact of conflict on those who are left behind in domestic life, and as such is good to compare with war photographer by Carol and Duffy and perhaps Remains by Simon Armitage