War Photographer

• • “War photographer“ - highlights the focus of the poem
• • sinister tone created
  • ”in his dark room he is finally alone with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows“ - sibilance, imagery of war graves juxtaposes order of photos with chaos of war - trying to bring order to chaos
  • ”as though this were a church and he a priest preparing to intone a Mass” - religious references = work is sacred, his role as if he is a priest - important
  • “Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. “ - plosives = harshness of war/quick fire pace or could mimick gun shots
  • ”all flesh is grass” - Bible reference = life is transitory
• • “He has a job to do” - short sentence = emotionless
  • ”solutions slop in trays beneath his hands which did not tremble then though seem to now”. - indicates emotionally affected
  • “Rural England. “ caesura - separation - does he feel separated or does he think that the people in England feel separated
  • “home again to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet of running children in a nightmare heat” - simplicity of rural England juxtaposed with horrors faced by children - emotive language
• • otherness “ a strangers features” ”the blood stained into foreign dust” - also alludes to Genesis 3 - we were made from dust and onto dust we will return
  • imagery of death - ”half-formed ghost” “blood stained”
  • ”how he sought approval Without words“ - element of separation
• ”he was never one of them“ - otherness
• • “A hundred agonies in black and white from which his editor will pick out five or six for Sunday’s supplement“ - contrast -the editor is portrayed as emotionless/wishing to gain from this - disheartening
  • ”the reader‘s eyeballs prick with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers - mid line rhyme = speed of forgetting - not their problem — mention Of “eyeballs” instead of the reader portrays them as unsympathetic
• From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where he earns his living and they do not care” - defeated tone - his efforts are futile - his job is to bring to light what happens/encourage care -audience =desensitised
• • Structural techniques:
  • cyclical structure = emphasises how futile his efforts are
  • 4 stanzas of 6 lines
  • rhyme scheme = abbcdd - regularity represents control attempted to impose on the chaos of war