War Photographer Poem

War has always been an unfortunate part of our society and civilization. War will sadly and undoubtedly be with us as long as we exist. However, the portrayal of war for many centuries gave a sense of patriotism and romanticism. Then the invention of the camera changed how humanity perceived war in the late to mid 19th century. And all of a sudden, images of war became of shear violence and destruction. The violence in these images would play a significant part in the social and political standpoints of war in our nation.

War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy is based on a war photographer who has experienced and witnessed the reality of war. The war photographer has returned to his quite home in England from his latest job. He develops the spools of film, he took in the frontline. As he organizes the pictures, he remembers the terrifying situation he is in, "A stranger's features faintly start to twist before his eyes a half-formed ghost." Then, he sends those pictures to the Sunday newspaper, where his editor will choose the ones to be printed.

The idea of loss is explored diversely in the poems ‘Conscript’ by FA Horn and ‘The Photograph’ by Peter Kocan. Where ‘Conscript’ conveys the loss of a soldier on the battlefields of World War II and his physical demise, ‘The Photograph’ conveys the loss of a World War I Australian soldier and the grief his family endures with the passing of time. Although the two poems are set in different wars, the poets similarly reinforce the devastation, as well as the emotional and physical impact associated with war.

A similar idea is used In Bruce Dawes poem “Homecoming”, he uses vivid imagery and other poetic techniques to display his opinion on war. He uses his unique Australian cultural context that helps connect

War is a scandalous topic where peoples’ views differ as to what war is. Some people see it as pure evil and wicked while others think that it is brave and noble of what soldiers do. Looking at poems which had been written by people affected by war help show the messages which are portrayed. The two sets of poems which show different views of war as well as some similarities are “the Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars” by Richard Lovelace and “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, “The Song of the Mud” by Mary Borden. Both these poets use linguistic devices to convince the reader of their view of what the war is. Tennyson and Lovelace show how war is worthy

Imagery techniques in this poem consist of key words, an example is “They’re rolling them out of the deep-freeze locker on the tarmac” this gives the readers an image of dead bodies being rolled out of an aeroplane onto the runway. By using a visual approach in the poem, the poet can better express his feelings on war to the reader(s).

In the poems ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson and ‘Exposure’ by Wilfried Owen, both poets incorporate ideas of patriotism to convey a message about the futility of war. This is revealed in many similar and different ways:

During times of war, it is inevitable for loss to be experienced by all. In the poems “The Black Rat” and “The Photograph” written by Iris Clayton and Peter Kocan respectively, the idea of loss is explored through an omniscient narrator recalling a soldier’s involvement in warfare. While Clayton writes of a soldier’s abrupt loss of hope and how this experience negatively affects his life, Kocan explores how the loss of a loved one affects a family sixty years later. While both poems incorporate similar techniques in imagery and narration, the time setting for each poem is different as “The Black Rat” is set in Tobruk, Libya during World War 2 and “The Photograph” is set during World War 1.

In the first part of the poem the writer shows the difficulty he is having with taking a human life. In the second stanza he says “Making night work for us the starlight scope bringing men into killing range. This dark tone helps to emphasize the struggle the author is feeling as a soldier in war. Also he shows his emotions directly. In stanza 3 he says “The river under Vi Bridge takes the heart away”. This quote shows the feeling that the author gets

Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and

Poets frequently utilize vivid images to further depict the overall meaning of their works. The imagery in “& the War Was in Its Infancy Then,” by Maurice Emerson Decaul, conveys mental images in the reader’s mind that shows the physical damage of war with the addition of the emotional effect it has on a person. The reader can conclude the speaker is a soldier because the poem is written from a soldier’s point of view, someone who had to have been a first hand witness. The poem is about a man who is emotionally damaged due to war and has had to learn to cope with his surroundings. By use of imagery the reader gets a deeper sense of how the man felt during the war. Through the use of imagery, tone, and deeper meaning, Decaul shows us the

The point of the poem was to deliver the horrors of war to the public

Duffy uses the image, of the “boys”, “kissing photographs from home” along with the repeated lists of either family members, common names, or aspirations in order to create an emotive link between the speaker and reader. Likewise, Owen’s poem examines the affect war has on young men such as himself. Using Hyperbole’s like “all of my dreams” to make the reader compassionate towards the speaker. Owen’s next lines appeal to the reader to reflect on their own experiences by direct address, alliteration, imagery, asking the reader to personally stop telling the lie that are is honorable and noble. Contrastingly, Duffy strongly utilizes repetition to summarize the main theme in her poem. The final two lines are the same as two earlier lines making the reader dwell on why she has made this recurrence. In Duffy’s poem with focuses heavily on the rewinding of time and the changing of history, she repeats this phrase to illustrate the fact that nothing has changed. Both poems are rejections of war propaganda and reflections on how even after the tragedy and sorrow in both poems war are still fought daily and nothing has changed in the

In the second stanza , the writer is said to quote: "He has a job to

Throughout Wilfred Owen’s collection of poems, he unmasks the harsh tragedy of war through the events he experienced. His poems indulge and grasp readers to feel the pain of his words and develop some idea on the tragedy during the war. Tragedy was a common feature during the war, as innocent boys and men had their lives taken away from them in a gunshot. The sad truth of the war that most of the people who experienced and lived during the tragic time, still bare the horrifying images that still live with them now. Owen’s poems give the reader insight to this pain, and help unmask the tragedy of war.