War photographer

• "darkroom"

  Word Choice

  Literally a room for developing photographes. Connotations of a serious, brooding, bleak, scary place : perhaps suggesting the job takes the photographer to a dark place mentally: and to a place filled with stress and horror.
• "finally alone"


  Word Choice and Inversion

  Inversion places these words at the end of the sentence for emphasis. 'finally' suggests he has been looking for solitude, desparate to escape someone or something. The emphasis on being 'alone' recreates the loneliness of his job: separated from his subject, editor and his readers.
• "spools of suffering set out in ordered rows"


  Alliteration, Assonance, Word Choice / Image

  Repetition of the constant sound 's' and the sound 'o' mirrors the repetition of the spools laid out on the photographer's table: each spool clearly and methodically marked out: repetitive, meticulous arrangement of the film.

  The 'ordered' rows brings to mind the image of tombstones or ranks of soldiers created to the horrors of war which are depicted on themselves.

  Including the adjective 'ordered' emphasises the photographer's methodical, almost robotic ways of working.
• "the only light is red and softly glows"


  Colour symbolism and Word Choice

  "only" builds on the idea of loneliness and so "red" can symblise danger or blood - which the photographer deals in photos of. It also suggests a 'Sanctuary lamp' contributing to the stanza's extended religious image.

  "softly glows" adds to the gentel atomsphere of a safe, quiet, lonely room back home
• "as though this were a church and he / a priest preparing to intone a mass"


  Extended image

  The developing room is compared to a church, the photographer to a priest and his work is contributing to preparations for a Mass.

  This perhaps suggests that the work the photographer does is comparable to spreading the word/truth of God: serious, worthy, life-changing work. The image is extended by the biblical quotation which ends the stanza.
• "Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh."


  List and Single word sentences.

  The punctuation/list is blunt and functional (like the photographer's work). Sounds like a roll-call suggesting they are simply examples from a longer list.

  These are places which have suffered from the ravages of civil war or genocide.
• "All flesh is grass"


  This is biblical quotation. In it's full context, the phase is used to illustrate that the word of God is eternal and consistent compared to human life which is transient and brief.

  In this context in the poem, this ties in with the religious imagery. It has already been suggested that the photographer is spreading an important message through his photos (as a priest spreads his messgae through the word of God). This quotation develops that highlighting how the suffering the photographer shoots is constantly changing and on-going because photos succeed in capturing it and making it permanent.

  The rhyming of 'mass' and grass' as well as the mention of Phnom Penh might also invoke the mass graves or burial sites, where the bodies/victims of genocide/war decompose and literally turn to grass in the soil.

  The juxaposition of this phrase with the list of which is perhaps an ironic comment: yes, all human life ends eventually, but in such places as these it ended much sooner.
• "Alone...ordered rows...only...softly glows...as though...intone... Phnom Penh"


  Assonance

  The vowel sound 'o (oh)' is repeated throughout the first stanza. This recurring sound reflects the priest intoning a Mass - solemn, low and the sound adds to the serious atomsphere.
• "He has a job to do"


  Simple sentence and Ambiguity

  Literally refers to the job of developing the photographs but also refers to his overall job of war photography.

  Short, simple and blunt: reflecting the blunt, matter of fact approach the photographer has to work with. Perhaps this is a justification or an excuse for a job?
• "solutions slop"


  Ambiguity, Alliteration and Word Choice

  The word solutions means literally the liquid used to develop the pictures. It also suggests 'the solutions for a problem'. In this case, the answer/solution to the problem of war is sloppy.

  The word 'slop' and the alliteration of the 's' sound suggests the sloshing of the liquid. This emphasises how the 'solutions' (literal and figurative) are volatile or difficult to deal with. The contrast between the messiness of war and the order of home is a running theme in the poem.
• "hands which did not tremble then / though seem to now"


  Contrast and Enjambment

  The photographer's hands are steady when taking the photos - they have to be, otherwise the pictures would be blurry and unsellable, In contrast, when he gets home and he does not need to suppress his emotions, his hands tremble with fear/anxiety, the use of enjambment emphasises the contrast by putting "though seem to now" on a new line.
• "Rural England"


  Word Choice and Minor Sentence

  This minor sentence shifts the poem to the photographer's home. The word 'rural' connotations of perfect, countryside life: leafy, green, peaceful, natural and calm. This contrasts with the otherr names in stanza one which were exactly the opposite: urban, harsh, volatile and dangerous.
• "Ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel"


  Oxymoron and Word Choice

  Pain, by definition, is something unexpected, a reaction to something unusual and unpleasant, never ordinary. The oxymoron 'ordinnary pain' makes the reader consider what is meant. The kind of pain experienced in 'rural England' isn't really pain at all, but unhappiness which can be solved by mere sunshine. This makes us wonder what kind of pain is being experienced abroad: it must be terrible, agonising, serious and real pain.
• "Fields which don't explode beneath the feet / of running children in a nightmare heat"


  Word Choice

  This seems a peculiar sentence: of course we don't expect fields to explode. In England, fields are part of a comfortable, rural life. These lines emphasise the terrible contrast between this life, and the ' nightmare' life in a war zone (which might contain minefields).

  The reader is reminded of the famous picture of a naked child Kim Phuc running from a napalm army during the Vietnam War.
• "something is happening"


  Ambiguity and Simple sentence

  Just like the second stanza, the third starts with a vague, simpe sentence. The 'something' is literally about a photograph developing, but something else is happening too - the photographer is experiencing all the associated feelings and memories that the photo holds for him. He is transported back to the moment of taking the picture.
• "a stranger's features / faintly start to twist before his eyes"


  Word Choice

  The photograph begins to develop. The word 'twist' is a verb with connotations of pain, anguish and shock. This may be because the man in the photo was dying or in pain, or it may reflect the anguish of the photographer himself.
• "a half-formed ghost"


  Metaphor

  The man in the photo has become a ghost. This suggests his death. Perhaps too, the photographer is 'haunted' by memories of it.
• "he remembers the cries / of this man's wife, how he sought approval / without words to do what someone must and how the blood stained into foreign dust"


  Word Choice

  As the photograph begins to come to life, so does the photographer's memories of the incident. The senses are described: the sound of the wife's cries and the colour/texture of his blood soaking into the earth.

  The incident highlights the moral dilemma facing war photographers. They have a job to do ("to do what someone must") but they are intruding people's misery. The photographer obviously feels awkward about this as he seeks the wife's permission.
• "a hundred agonies in black-and-white"


  Metaphor and Ambiguity

  In this metaphor the photographs have become physical manifestations of pain and suffering, as each one tells a story.

  The pictures are literally monochrome. Alternatively there is no doubt or uncertainty about the agony in the pictures: the suffering is there to see 'in black and white'.
• "from which his editor will pick out five or six"


  Word Choice

  In contrast to the 'hundreds' of pictures of suffering available, the editor has only room for a few of them. The word 'pick' and the vagueness of 'five or six' perhaps suggest a criticism of the editor for being casual/off-hand when dealing with these pictures.
• "for sunday's supplement"


  Word Choice (alliteration)

  Supplements are the magazines and extra information contained in Sunday newspapers which include varied news (often about culture, money, businesses, sport, fashion etc...).

  There is perhaps an implicit critisism here: the photographer's pictures aren't considered good or interesting enough to be part of the main news section, therefore the pictures are relegated to the 'extra bits'.
• "the reader's eyeballs prick / with tears between bath and pre-lunch beers"


  Word Choice

  The phrase 'prick with tears' suggests the seriousness of the photographs leaving readers almost crying; considering alongside the short duration of the readers' distress, this is a clear criticism of their shallow response to the horrific pictures. The words 'bath' and 'pre-lunch beers' suggest luxury and indulgence which is in strong contrast to the lives of those captured on film by the photographer.
• "from the aeroplane he stares impassively at where / he earns a living and they do not care."


  Word Choice, Assonance and Tone

  By the end of the poem, there is a suggestion the photographer has become numb to his job, a little like the editor and readers. He stares with emotion ('impassively'). The idea from earlier on in the poem that he must be cold and unflinching to do his job ('he has a job to do' & 'to do what someone must') is repeated in the phrase 'he earns a living'. The critical tone of 'they' condemns the news, readers/citizens for their selfishness.

  The repetitive assonance of the 'ay' sound ('aeroplane...stares...where...a...they...care') creates a monotonous feeling of drudgery: the photographer is resigned to the way things work and the poem definitely concludes on a negative note.