Kamikaze

• Kamakazi


  Japanese fighter pilots who were sent on suicide missions during World War II, crashing their planes into enemy warships
• Beatric Garland was born in 1938 in Oxford
• Beatric Garland completed a degree in English literature and works in the NHS as a clinician and teacher
• In 2001, Beatric Garland won the national poetry prize
• Kamakazi comes from the collection of fireworks, a 2013 collection of poetry that focuses on life and death in the natural world
• Beatric Garland's interest


  What can motivate young men and women to give up their own lives in the service of a higher cause
• The poem contains a mother talking to her children, who are talking about her father the kamakazi pilot and his father, so there are four generations in the poem
• Conflict in the poem

  Personal conflict between the cultural/military expectation for the pilot to carry out his kamakazi mission, and his inner desire to return home
• Kamakazi and Exposure


  Both poems feature an active military man questioning what he's doing, thinking back to life at home and the comforts of family, but in Kamakazi the thoughts of nature's beauty and memories of home cause the pilot to turn around and return, while in Exposure the opposite happens
• Structure of the poem

  • Tight structure with 7 stanzas of 6 lines each, reflecting the tight control of the military and culture, but also contains free verse and enjambment, reflecting the pilot's desire for freedom and personal expression
• Language in the poem

  • Extensive use of natural imagery, showing the beauty of nature and why the pilot should not want to deprive others of that pleasure
• The most powerful character in the poem is the tuna fish, described as the "Dark Prince, muscular, dangerous", suggesting nature's true power over man's efforts
• The image of sunrise


  Represents both the power of nature and the power of man (the military flag of Japan)
• Repetition in the poem

  • The repetition of the word "safe" hints at the pilot's mindset, remembering waiting for his father's safe return and wishing for his own safe return
• Narrator


  Starts in third person, distancing the speaker from the pilot, but switches to first person direct speech, showing the speaker's own conflict and shame about her father's actions
• The ending is tragic, with the pilot wondering whether literal death as a kamakazi would have been better than the emotional death he experienced upon returning home