War Poetry

Question 1

Charge of the Light Brigade
(bravery in sacrifice)

Answer 1

‘Into the valley of death/ Rode the six hundred’

Question 2

Charge of the Light Brigade
(nobility in blind obedience)

Answer 2

‘Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die’

Question 3

Charge of the Light Brigade
(momentum and excitement)

Answer 3

‘Plunged into the battery smoke / right through the line they broke’

Question 4

Exposure
(inertia, weakness)

Answer 4

‘we cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams and stare, snow-dazed’

Question 5

Exposure
(refrain)

Answer 5

‘but nothing happens’

Question 6

Exposure
(nature, metaphor for authority)

Answer 6

‘(Sudden successive flights of) bullets streak the silence. Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow’

Question 7

Exposure
(death without heroism)

Answer 7

‘this frost will fasten on this mud and us’

Question 8

Remains
(moral conflict)

Answer 8

‘probably armed, possibly not’

Question 9

Remains
(guilt, ptsd)

Answer 9

‘I see every round as it rips through his life’

Question 10

Remains
(gruesome, nonchalance)

Answer 10

‘One of my mates goes by
and tosses his guts back into his body.’

Question 11

Remains
(volta, remains of guilt)

Answer 11

‘end of story, except not really’

Question 12

Remains
(nightmares ptsd)

Answer 12

‘Dream and he’s torn apart by a dozen rounds’

Question 13

bayonet charge
(disoriented, questioning loyalties)

Answer 13

‘in what clockwork of the stars and the nations was he the hand pointing that second’

Question 14

bayonet charge
(anger, control of patriotic propaganda)

Answer 14

‘patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye’

Question 15

bayonet charge
(meaningless patriotism and bravery in chaos of combat)

Answer 15

‘King, honour, dignity et cetera dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm’

Question 16

Poppies
(internal conflict)

Answer 16

‘All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt’

Question 17

Poppies
(maternal instinct)

Answer 17

‘I resisted the impulse to run my fingers through the gelled blackthorns of your hair’

Question 18

Poppies
(excitement of war)

Answer 18

‘The world overflowing like a treasure chest’
‘intoxicated’

Question 19

War photographer
(religious imagery, ceremonial)

Answer 19

‘A priest preparing to intone a mass’

Question 20

War photographer
(guilt)

Answer 20

‘He sought approval without words to do what someone must’

Question 21

War photographer
(serialisation)

Answer 21

‘A hundred agonies in black and white’

Question 22

War photographer
(trying to make sense of horrors of conflict)

Answer 22

‘spools of suffering set out in ordered rows’

Question 23

Kamikaze
(heroism, legacy)

Answer 23

‘A one way journey into history’

Question 24

Kamikaze
(patriotism)

Answer 24

‘Her father embarked at sunrise
with a flask of water, a samurai sword’

Question 25

Kamikaze (perspective, beauty of life, nature)

Answer 25

‘He must have looked far down at the little fishing boats strung out like bunting’

Question 26

kamikaze (conflict of love vs societal pressures)

Answer 26

‘This was no longer the father we loved’

Question 27

the Emigree (power of identity)

Answer 27

‘It may be sick with tyrants but I am branded by an impression of sunlight’

Question 28

The Emigree (conflict)

Answer 28

‘They circle me. They accuse me of being dark in their free city.’

Question 29

the Emigree (hope)

Answer 29

‘My shadow falls as evidence of sunlight’