Poppies

1. Poppies by Jane Weir
Monday 23rd May

2. Poppies by Jane Weir
• What is it about?
• Set in the present day but reaches right back to the
beginning of the Poppy Day tradition
• Armistice Sunday began after the First World War in 1918
• Today, the event is used to remember soldiers of all wars
who have died
• Written at a time when British soldiers were dying in Iraq
and Afghanistan

3. Poppies by Jane Weir
• What is it about?
• A mother describes her son leaving home to fight in
the army
• She feels sad and worried for his safety
• She describes helping him smarten up his uniform
• When he leaves she goes to places that remind her of
him

4. Poppies by Jane Weir
•Structure
•4 Irregular stanzas – WHY?
•Free Verse – Why?
•Enjambment – Why?
•Caesuras – Why?

5. Poppies by Jane Weir
•Structure
•4 Irregular stanzas – representing the mother’s
experience and change in her emotions
•Free verse – Freedom of son.
•Enjambment – Cycle of children leaving home
•Caesuras – Breaks the rhythm: Mother trying
to stay calm but she breaks down.

6. Poppies by Jane Weir
•Structure
•Uses past and present tense – memories,
time has moved on but the mother cannot
•First and second person – Her last memory
and then visiting the memorial – shift in
time shows the different ways she
remembers him and how she grieves.

7. Poppies by Jane Weir
•Language
•Can you find any of the following?
•Military Language
•Metaphors to suggest conflict
•Language to evoke colours or textures

8. Stanza 1
• Three days before Armistice Sunday
and poppies had already been placed
on individual war graves. Before you left,
I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals,
spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade
of yellow bias binding around your blazer
“Armistice Sunday” – Sets up the tone of the poem –
Image of poppies – Remembrance, death, respect
Image of poppies –
Remembrance,
death, respect
Alliteration highlights her
desperation

9. Stanza 2
• Sellotape bandaged around my hand,
I rounded up as many white cat hairs
as I could, smoothed down your shirt's
upturned collar, steeled the softening
of my face. I wanted to graze my nose
across the tip of your nose, play at
being Eskimos like we did when
you were little. I resisted the impulse
to run my fingers through the gelled
blackthorns of your hair. All my words
flattened, rolled, turned into felt,
She removes the cat hair from his suit – Protective mother
“Bandaged” referring to injury
and a painful death perhaps
Metaphor – trying to be strong and
brave in front of him.
Two memories here – him
leaving home and him
being a child. Reminded of
innocence here through
the word “little” and verb
“play”
“Blackthorns of
his hair” – he’s
prickly towards
her as a grown
man – not
affectionate
towards her Metaphor – Tries to fight off emotion but she can’t

10. Stanza 3
slowly melting. I was brave, as I walked
with you, to the front door, threw
it open, the world overflowing
like a treasure chest. A split second
and you were away, intoxicated.
After you'd gone I went into your bedroom,
released a song bird from its cage.
Later a single dove flew from the pear tree,
and this is where it has led me,
skirting the church yard walls, my stomach busy
making tucks, darts, pleats, hat-less, without
a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves.
Metaphor “slowly melting” –
mother breaking down
“Brave” – emotive
language – She lets him
leave – he goes to war
Simile – He wants to
experience the world
Excited about being
independent
Image of the “song bird” =
She has released him
“Dove” symbol of
innocence & peace
Personification to describe
her stomach – she is
anxious, emotional,
worried.
She feels cold when she hears the
news of her son’s death

11. Stanza 4
On reaching the top of the hill I traced
the inscriptions on the war memorial,
leaned against it like a wishbone.
The dove pulled freely against the sky,
an ornamental stitch. I listened, hoping to hear
your playground voice catching on the wind.
“hill” – metaphor of a struggle,
her son has died
Grief as she looks for his name
Simile – She is fragile and broken
Dove = Innocence
“Freely” – son is
dead and free of the
war and horror
Image of playground innocence –
when he was a child
Emotive language -
Alliteration emphasises her
desperate hoping

12. Can you remember…?
• Three images of innocence from the poem?
• Dove
• Playground
• Eskimo Kisses
•

13. •In the poem “Poppies” the poet makes the
point that the soldier leaving for war is
innocent. An example of this is shown in
the phrase: “dove pulled freely”. The word
“dove” has historically held connotations
of peace and innocence. This could
emphasise that the woman’s son is
innocent before leaving for war.