‘Poppies’, by Jane Weir, is a dramatic monologue in which, as Weir herself states:
‘I wanted to write a poem from the point of view of a mother and her relationship with
her son, a child who was loved’. The son has seemingly joined the army, and the poem
begins with the mother noticing how, three days before Remembrance Day, people had already
placed poppies on the graves of soldiers who had died in the war. This reminds her of how,
before her son left, she had pinned a poppy onto his blazer. She remembers how she had
smoothed down her son’s collar and had tried not to look upset. She had wanted to Eskimo-kiss
him like when he was little, and had to hold back from running her hands through his hair.
Later, the mother followed a dove to a war memorial, leaning on it, hoping to hear her
son’s voice. There’s some ambiguity in this poem–is
the son dead? Is he at war? But what really matters is what the poem tells us about Power
and Conflict. ‘Poppies’ looks at the effects of war on those who are not themselves at
war. This is also explored in ‘Kamikaze’ and ‘War Photographer’.
Let me just point out, this video is a quick recap of the poem – to learn more, watch
my full analysis which I’ll link at the end.
Jane Weir is a textile designer as well as a poet, and that's important for this poem
because there's a lot of imagery related to textiles in ‘Poppies’ – we’ll look
at some of that when we analyse Weir’s use of language.
In terms of form, ‘Poppies’ is a dramatic monologue, which means that the poem focuses
on a single person giving a speech to a silent listener. But the speaker is not the poet.
So this isn't Jane Weir talking: she is writing from the perspective of someone whose son
went to war. And the poem is addressed to the soldier, the son, through the personal
pronoun ‘you’, but we never hear from the person being spoken to. Their voice is
silent. The dramatic monologue form, then, highlights the fact that the son is not there,
which heightens the sense of loss the mother is feeling.
Weir also uses structure for effect. The poem is written in free verse, meaning that it
does not rhyme and has no regular rhythm. On top of that, the poem is made up of stanzas
of totally different lengths. And there's enjambment, where the sentences flow on to
the next line and even the next stanza. There’s also caesura, where punctuation within the
line makes the reader stop and pause. So what can we say about this? Well, all of these
combine for a chaotic structure. It's really not ordered or controlled. And that reflects
the chaotic impact of conflict on those at home. Their life is chaos. The poem lacks
control or organisation because the mother is completely absorbed with the terrifying
thoughts about her son.
A couple of specific points –let’s look at the enjambment here between stanzas where
it says, “…all my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt, slowly melting.” So, this
sentence continues not only on to the next line, but a whole new stanza. What can we
say about that? Well, Jane Weir herself said that if one is
to grieve, one has to, at some point, ‘let it dissolve’ and the break in structure
here reflects how the mother is breaking emotionally. It's emphasised through a stanza break within
a sentence – the enjambment – because it's reflecting the breaking emotions of the
mother.
Now onto language. Weir uses very domestic, everyday, ordinary imagery but infuses in
it the rich metaphor and simile and imagery of war and suffering to suggest just how those
left behind at home in civilian life feel.
For example, let’s look at the quotation from the power and conflict revision rap.
‘Sellotape bandaged around my hand’. Have you ever done this – when you've got dog
hair on your clothes, or fluff, you wrap Sellotape around your hand and, then, you tap yourself,
and it removes the dog hair or fluff? So, what the mother is doing, in literal terms,
is defluffing the son’s clothes. But, of course, the word ‘bandaged’ is a word
that we would relate to suffering and pain and, perhaps, a wounded soldier comes to mind.
‘I wanted to graze my nose against the tip of your nose’. what the speaker actually
wants to do is to kiss the son by rubbing her nose up against his – the Eskimo kiss.
But of course, like ‘bandaged’, the word ‘graze’ has connotations of suffering
and conflict. There are numerous examples of this, which
I explore in the more detailed analysis video - the constant blending of domestic and military
language shows how this suffering of her son or the idea of her son in the conflict zone
is constantly on the speaker's mind. It's in everything she sees and does. ‘Po ppies’
forces the reader think about the impact of conflict on those who are left behind, in
domestic life, and as such is good to compare with ‘War Photographer’ by Carol Ann Duffy,
and ‘Remains’ by Simon Armitage. If you found this video useful and would like
more in the series, please do give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel.