Poppies

• Poppies


  A dramatic monologue in which the poet wanted to write from the point of view of a mother and her relationship with her son
• The son has seemingly joined the army
• The poem begins with the mother noticing how three days before Remembrance Day people had already placed poppies on the graves of soldiers who died in the war
• This reminds her of how before her son left she had pinned a poppy onto his Blazer
• The mother remembers how she had smoothed down her son's collar and a not to look upset she had wanted to eskimo kiss him like when he was little and had to hold back from running her hands through his hair
• Later the mother followed a dove to a war memorial leaning on it hoping to hear her son's voice
• There's some ambiguity in this poem - is the Son dead, is he at War, but what really matters is what the poem tells us about power and conflict
• Poppies looks at the effects of War on those who are not themselves at War
• Jane Weir


  A textile designer as well as a poet, and that's important for this poem because there's a lot of imagery related to textiles in poppies
• Form of poppies


  A dramatic monologue, which means the poem focuses on a single person giving a speech to a silent listener, but the speaker is not the poet
• The dramatic monologue form highlights the fact that the son is not there, which heightens the sense of loss the mother is feeling
• Structure of poppies


  Written in free verse, with stanzas of totally different lengths, enjambment where sentences flow onto the next line and even the next stanza, and caesura where punctuation within the line makes the reader stop and pause
• The chaotic structure reflects the chaotic impact of conflict on those at home, their life is chaos, the poem lacks control or organization because the mother is completely absorbed with the terrifying thoughts about her son
• The enjambment between stanzas, where it says "all my words flattened rolled turned into felt slowly melting", reflects how the mother is breaking emotionally
• The poem blends domestic, everyday imagery with rich metaphor and imagery of war and suffering, to suggest how those left behind at home in civilian life feel
• Examples include "cellotape bandaged around my hand" and "I wanted to graze my nose against the tip of your nose"
• The constant blending of domestic and Military language shows how the suffering of her son or the idea of her son in the conflict zone is constantly on the speaker's mind
• Poppies forces the reader to think about the impact of conflict on those who are left behind in domestic life
• Poppies can be compared to war photographer by Carol Ann Duffy and Remains by Simon Armitage