War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy

Question 1

“Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows”

Answer 1

The use of sibilance highlights this image, which creates a suggestion of graves or bodies ‘in ordered rows’. There is also contrast in this image: ‘spools of suffering’ which seems chaotic yet in ‘ordered rows’.

Question 2

‘tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers’

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Answer 2

Duffy uses internal rhyme in this poem in a few places, possibly as a way of exploring the war photographer’s internal feelings of conflict. Here we see how, for the newspaper readers, seeing these images only affects them for a short while and their lives continue as normal, unlike the victims of war.

Question 3

‘A hundred agonies in black and-white’

Answer 3

The scenes in his negatives are compared to ‘agonies’, a powerful noun to tell us about the pain of conflict.
they are in ‘black-and-white’ they have been made to Because seem merely factual or simplified. She seems to be suggesting that their pain is not given enough recognition.

Question 4

Aspects of Power or Conflict

Answer 4

Conflict in war: the horrors are explored with words like ‘blood stained’, or the ‘cries’ of a wife and also the
imagery (above). But the main conflict is that of the war photographer as he grapples with what he does for a
living: ‘impassively’ photographing ‘running children’s’ ‘agonies in the ‘nightmare heat’ of war.

Question 5

Poems that can be linked

Answer 5

Remains, which explores the haunting memories of war from the perspective of a soldier