POPPIES

• “Sellotape bandaged around my hand, I rounded up as many white cat hairs as I could.”

  • metaphor for bandaged limbs caused by war injuries
  • white cat hairs connotes innocence, it also sounds motherly and tenderly ironically contrasting injuries from the war
  • mothers hands are tied as he’s conscripted or old enough to make his own decisions
  • “rounded up” hints of conscription
• “I resisted the impulse to run my fingers through the gelled blackthorns of your hair”

  • tactile imagery shows she wants to touch her son whose out of reach
  • “Blackthorns” allude to Jesus’ crown of thorns → she thinks that her son is metaphoricaly crucified by leaving at a young age
  • could also represent the barbed wire in the trenches
  • “hair gel” shows that the son is now older and is about to leave
• “released a songbird from it’s cage .”

  • the mother could be the “songbird” as she releases her emotions by crying as she was afraid to do so in front of her son to not make him feel guilty or constrained
  • Or her son could be the songbird being released from being cage ; he’s now free and may not come back
  • Full stop creates a deliberate pause, mimicking the silence of the house
• “I traced the inscriptions on the war memorial, I leaned against it like a wish bone”

  • wishbones bring luck which is ironic as her wish for her son to be spared from death isn’t granted
  • Wishbones are located above the heart and are broken
  • could show that she is now vulnerable as the physical and metaphorical protection over heart is gone
  • or that the mother and son are two halves of a wishbone and without eachother they are incomplete, even though they are destined to be apart
• “the dove pulled freely”

  • the dove is a symbol of hope, freedom and peace and flies away representing the carrying the spirit of the dead to their final resting place
  • the woman implores it to bring her son back but ”freely” shows that it ignores her.
  • “pulling freely” could refer to a needle going in and out like her emotions, of fear and anger
  • juxtaposition of “pulled” and “freely”, hints that the bird is still trapped and encased by it’s troubles, just like the mother
  • Or it could represent the conflict she felt of losing him or the conflict she feels from freeing herslef from grief
• CONTEXT:

  • Weir was a textile designer which may be why she uses tactile imagery
  • Weir was born in NI during the troubles in the 80s
  • Weir had two sons ; maybe this is how she would feel if they went to war