Long Story ShortEnglish resourcesPlay today's

English resources/Power and Conflict/Exposure

Exposure

Soldiers wait in the snow. Nothing happens. The cold kills them slowly.

Snow at the front, 1918
Snow at the front, 1918. National Library of Scotland, no known restrictions, Wikimedia Commons.

This poem in five words

Soldiersfreezenothinghappens

Hide these. Ask the class for their five. Then show them. Then play today's sentence.

The quotes

4 big quotes in this poem.

Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us

Owen · Exposure · conflict · power of nature

The cold is the enemy, not the Germans. The wind cuts like a knife.

But nothing happens

Owen · Exposure · conflict

The line at the end of four stanzas. They wait. They freeze. Nothing happens. That is the horror.

Slowly our ghosts drag home

Owen · Exposure · conflict · memory · loss

The men imagine going home. Only their ghosts can go.

For love of God seems dying

Owen · Exposure · conflict · loss

Owen loses faith out there. God's love seems to be dying too.

← Before thisThe Charge of the Light Brigade: Six hundred charge the gunsNext →Storm on the Island: Islanders brace against nothing
← All 15 poemsNow play today's Long Story ShortOne real news sentence. Keep five of its words. Two minutes. Free. No login.Play now
The words of the book come from the AQA Poems Past and Present anthology, Power and Conflict cluster (poems quoted briefly for study; older poems are public domain). Every quote was checked against it. Paintings and drawings are public domain, from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each one. Notes by Akash Wadhwani. Copy it. Print it. Share it. No sign-up.
Spotted a mistake? akash@sheets.works