War Photographer

• War Photographer is a poem written by Carol Ann Duffy. The genre of this poem is war poetry as it follows the return of a war photographer bringing back home with him the horrific images he has captured. The poem goes into detail about the photographers' need to carry out his important job and the mental and psychological effects this has inflicted on him. LINK! Duffy uses a variety of techniques throughout the poem such as sibilance, metaphors and imagery.
• In his dark room he is finally alone. 


  The poem explores the terrible memories the photographer has brought back with him from the warzone. In stanza one the poet states "in his dark room he is finally alone" The metaphor for "dark room" is the photographer's mind. Duffy describes his mind as dark which can have connotations of being depressed and could also be a reference to the dark thoughts the photographer is having.
• The only light is red


  This quote links to "the only light is red" The light that is being referred to is the light that helps to create the photos the photographer has taken but it can be assumed from the connotations of red being violence, blood, and danger that the photographer's safe place, his mind, is now being infected by the conflict of war as he cannot rid his troubled thoughts and what he has seen during the multitude of wars.
• Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows

  The poem explores the lasting effects of war. Stanza one when the poet uses the phrase "SOSSOIOR" the repeated "s" is an example of sibilance. It has the effect of elongating the word suffering as if it is spreading and infecting the whole poem. It is as if the photographer is being haunted by the suffering he witnessed in the war.
• set out in ordered rows


  Also Duffy describes the spools as being "set out in ordered rows" These spools are full of the chaos of war, a chaos which the photographer has been forced to witness. By ordering the spools, it is as if he is trying to order and make sense of the terrible, traumatic images he has been compelled to capture.