GCSE English Literature

1. ‘Poppies’
Jane Weir
The poem ‘Poppies’ is about a mother following her son’s development
and growth as a person, ultimately having to send off him off to fight in
a war in which he dies. The text focuses on the mother-son relationship as well as the main
underlying theme of grief. Weir writes this from a mother’s point of view as she took
inspiration from her own daily routine and relationship with her son. She wrote this as a
charity commission proposed by Carol Ann Duffy for Armistice Day.
‘Poppies’, although seemingly innocent and gentle at first, has a hidden dark tone to it. In
many lines there seem to be words that are used cleverly in a subtle way but indicate heavy
violence as seen with “spasms of paper red”. The verb “spasms” is very unpleasant when
applied to human suffering as it uses imagery to make the reader think about it in such a
way. It is also an unusual word to describe the paper in a poppy. Other lines in early stanzas
use war imagery and language in, what seems to be, normal interactions between them.
“Sellotape bandaged” and “disrupting a blockade “are excellent examples of this.
“Bandaged” implies an injury and “blockade” is a word to describe a defence tactic used by
soldiers. Weir may be using this to foreshadow the events that will happen later in the
poem as the boy is dispatched to go to war. Some may see this as a staggering contrast
between domestic happiness and his suffering in the battlefield, making it a powerful
device.
Another example of imagery in the poem is the symbolism of birds and nature to indicate
and indicate when certain events have happened. The most prominent one is “a dove flew
from the pear tree” to suggest that the boy has died in action. The dove is generally
accepted as a symbol of hope, peace, but also, in this context, death. We know that the bird
is representative of the boy, as Weir wrote “released a song bird from its cage” soon after
the mother sent her son off. The dove also serves as a Biblical reference where it symbolised
peace and a new beginning in the story of Noah’s Ark. Readers as invited to interpret it as
they wish, but they fact remains that the metaphor of the dove represents the boy’s peace
of death. The pear tree is a symbol of fertility as it bears fruit, which can be seen by some
readers as representative of a mother and child.
Weir says she wanted express emotion in this poem around thread and the texture and
making of fabric, which is evident in the language and even form used in ‘Poppies’. She
explains that she used this to create a sense of texture through layers of metaphors and
imagery in the poem. “All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt” is literally building
layer upon layer of verbs to describe the process of making felt. It is also used to describe
the mother’s feelings of sadness pile up and layer to become a solid, just as grief takes over
people’s minds and becomes all they think about. (By Dimitri)