war photographer

• ’in his darkroom he is finally alone with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows’ trochaic and iambic- unsettles us ordered rows are grave stones he makes money feom death moral dilemme
• ‘Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass’
• ‘He has a job to do’
• home again to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel, to field which don’t explode beneath the feet of running children in a nightmare heat
• ‘a hundred agonies in black and white from which his editor will pick out five or six for sundays supplement’
• ‘from the aeroplane he stares impassively at where he earns his living and they do not care’
• carol ann duffy published it in 1985, 10 years after end of vietnam war
• written in third person


  reflect feelings of detachment the photographer experiences at the scenes of conflict, which allows him to continue his job
• tight form of 6 line stanzas, as well as a constant ABBCDD rhyme scheme


  • lack of change throughout can interpret the war photographs lack of power to change anything as his work falls upon an unreceptive audience
  • reflects meticulous way they work ('ordered rows'), his sombre ritual is perhaps his way to maintain a sense of normality or a way to control his emotions
• all flesh is grass is a biblical allusion to you are made to die