5 - Last Post Flashcards
(12 cards)
What is the context of the poem ‘Last Post’?
Written in 2009 during Duffy’s time as Poet Laureate.
Commissioned by BBC to honour deaths of WW1 veterans Harry Patch and Henry Allingham, last surviving British veterans of WW1.
Poem takes title from bugle call used at British ceremonies remembering those killed in war, read at Allingham’s funeral.
Theme of war evident in title and references to Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est”.
Duffy described poem as attempt at healing and being at peace with world.
Poem is a tribute and blessing, even an apology, on behalf of poetry and all poets.
What is the structure and form of the poem ‘Last Post’?
No fixed or set rhyme scheme, only 2 couplets and some half-rhymes. Poem can’t fully rhyme, just as Duffy can’t fully change what happened to soldiers of WW1. Only thing can hope to change is way we think about war.
Speaker reverses time and tells story of war backwards:
Stanza 1 - men return from No-Marks Land to trenches.
Stanza 2 - men move from war front and start to return home.
Stanza 3 - men enjoy and contemplate life free from war.
4 regular verses, 1st consists of 2 lines, quotation from Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, 2nd and 3rd contain 11 lines each, depicting reversal of time, 4th has 6 lines, bringing poem back to reality.
What are the main themes of the poem ‘Last Post’?
Remembrance
Futility of war
Survival
Attitudes to conflict
What poems can be used to compare with the poem ‘Last Post’ for the theme of remembrance?
Anthem for Doomed Youth
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Mametz Wood
What Lips My Lips Have Kissed
Requiem for the Croppies
Easter Monday
Poppies
What poems can be used to compare with the poem ‘Last Post’ for the theme of futility of war?
Anthem for Doomed Youth
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
Bayonet Charge
Mametz Wood
The Man He Killed
What poems can be used to compare with the poem ‘Last Post’ for the theme of survival?
Bayonet Charge
Out of the Blue
Vitaï Lampada
What poems can be used to compare with the poem ‘Last Post’ for the theme of attitudes to conflict?
Who’s for the Game?
The Man He Killed
Bayonet Charge
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
What is the analysis for the preface in the poem ‘Last Post’?
Intertextual reference to Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, as modern poet, Duffy can’t directly write about WW1 so places Owen at centre of poem’s idea.
In unconventional way, poem addresses war by avoiding it.
‘…plunges…guttering, choking, drowning.’ - shocking verbs depict brutality of war Owen experienced first hand, soldier suffocating during gas attack as unable to get mask on in time.
Duffy wishes she could erase trauma of what soldiers suffered, reverses war and needless deaths, events reverse like a film.
What is the analysis for stanza 1 in the poem ‘Last Post’?
Duffy’s compassionate dream of version of history where the war never happened ironically juxtaposed with Owen’s nightmarish view of war.
‘If…’ - conjunction establishes speculative tone and immediately sets out imaginative mission to explore “what if?”.
‘If poetry could tell it backwards…’ - speaker clearly establishes from beginning this is only speculation, can’t undo history.
‘If poetry could tell it backwards, true…’ - Common war trope of depicting soldier as anonymous victim, but as poem progresses soldier gains life and identity.
‘…shrapnel scythed you to the sinking mud…’ - sibilance reinforces horrific death of soldier, brutally and painfully cut down by enemy fire.
‘sinking mud…’ - caesura, pace comes to abrupt halt as speaker pauses event before it descends into any more brutal violence, rewinds painful history of war.
‘but you get up’ - soldier grateful and in awe of being granted second chance at life.
‘bled bad blood’ - alliteration and adjective represents anger and animosity towards enemy disappearing, hostility that defined war being removed.
‘Run upwards from the slime…’ - personification depicts speed at which men recover and eagerness to live out lives free from war.
‘see lines and lines’ - repetition reinforces extent of those who joined war effort and died.
‘British boys’ - alliteration illustrates soldiers youth, innocence and now renewed potential.
‘mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers…’ - list demonstrates loss of soldiers and their loved ones, due to reversal of history, now able to enjoy and appreciate.
‘…trenches, kisses…mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers…’ - heavy sibilance emphasises relief of men able to return home and enjoy their lives.
‘not entering the story now’ - references soldiers and loved ones at home who die with emotional grief and pain, everyone suffers in war.
‘to die and die and die’ - repetition illustrates endless, mindless slaughter and suffering that soldiers experienced in war.
‘Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro patria mori’ - speaker challenges patriotic principle: “it is sweet and proper to die for one’s country”, and notion of it being good or honourable.
What is the analysis for stanza 2 in the poem ‘Last Post’?
Extensive enjambment throughout stanza reinforces outpouring of possibilities now opened up to soldier due to speaker’s rewriting of history.
‘You walk away’ - repetition demonstrates how soldiers now abandon patriotic principles that characterised involvement in war, language makes it seem easy to do, illustrating how this is idealised version of events.
‘drop your gun’ - verb demonstrates soldiers rejecting brutality and violence of war.
‘…like all your mates do too’ - colloquial term and list of male names glorifies men and focuses on comradeship rather than any sense of death or loss.
‘…and light a cigarette’ - sociable image illustrates how men now able to enjoy each other’s company rather than dying at each other’s side.
‘There’s coffee in the square, warm French bread’ - homely images show how men now able to enjoy simple, everyday pleasures in life once denied to them.
‘and all those thousands dead’ - alliteration emphasises grief of their passing, but now elation of their return.
‘…shaking dried mud from their hair’ - symbolically soldiers shaking grief, trauma and sacrifices demanded by war, removing any remnants associated with conflict.
‘Freshly alive’ - adverb, men now reborn to new possibilities.
‘a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd’ - image of youthful energy and celebration.
‘…released from History’ - personification illustrated how men previously trapped by brutal history of WW1, speaker now free them to make their own lives and history.
‘…the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.’ - adjective and alliteration demonstrate how soldiers will return home in triumphant, heroic fashion.
What is the analysis for stanza 3 in the poem ‘Last Post’?
‘You lean against a wall’ - verb shows that soldiers now at ease, content, relaxed and happy.
‘Your several million lives still possible’ - metaphor, rich, fulfilling and happy life could’ve been enjoyed by many.
‘Your several million lives still possible’ - referencing millions of soldiers who died in WW1, speaker could mean millions of possibilities in life now opened up to soldier from beginning.
‘…crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food’ - list documents life’s pleasures many soldiers unable to enjoy.
‘…crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food’ - caesura slows pace, allowing soldiers to savour pleasures that once previously denied to them.
‘…and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food’ - speaker elongates line to make it longer than rest in poem, cramming in as much as possible for men to enjoy.
‘You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile’ - Duffy said of this image “in a way it’s an attempt at healing and being one with the world”.
‘You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile’ - in new reality, no need for poet to document horrors of war as, in poem, they will not unfold.
‘You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile’ - perhaps Wilfred Owen smiling, glad to survive and thrive, no longer obliged to write at all.
‘…could truly tell…’ - speaker passionately wishes such great tragedy and so much suffering never came to pass.
‘If poetry could truly tell it backwards, then it would’ - cyclical structure, idealised version of events enclosed within poem, happy version poet presents does not and cannot exist outside these lines.
‘If poetry could truly tell it backwards, then it would’ - acknowledges this idealised view of world could only happen through poetry.
What is the content, meaning and purpose of the poem ‘Last Post’?
Poem about reversing horrors of WW1.
In poem speaker depicts traumatic experiences on battlefield as if in reverse, beginning at end of rewinding events.
Speaker imagines soldiers returning to trenches, reversing injuries, and ultimately walking away from brutality as whole, healthy men.
Poem explores devastating impacts of war, loss of life, and desire for world where such atrocities could be undone.
