English resources/Power and Conflict/Conflict
Conflict in Power and Conflict
Seven war poems. Not one of them is about winning. They are about waiting, freezing, killing a man and remembering it.
The quotes
26 quotes, in the order they happen.
the hapless Soldier's sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls
Blake · London · conflict · power of humans
The soldier's sigh turns into blood on the palace. The rich send the poor to die.
I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together
Browning · My Last Duchess · power of humans · conflict
The Duke had his wife killed because she smiled at everyone. He says it calmly, in passing.
Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward
Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict
The beat of the horses. The poem gallops. The men ride into the guns.
Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die
Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict · power of humans
Soldiers do not ask why. They obey and they die. Someone made a mistake and they paid.
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred
Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict · loss
Six hundred men ride into a valley of death. The line comes back again and again.
Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!
Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict · memory
Tennyson asks us to honour them. He praises the courage and skips the blunder.
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
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.
We are prepared: we build our houses squat
Heaney · Storm on the Island · power of nature · conflict
The islanders build low and strong. They think they are ready for the storm.
Bullets smacking the belly out of the air
Hughes · Bayonet Charge · conflict
Bullets punch the air itself. The soldier runs through it.
In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations
Hughes · Bayonet Charge · conflict · power of humans
Mid-run he wonders what machine put him here. Stars, nations, cold clockwork. He is a part in it.
King, honour, human dignity, etcetera
Hughes · Bayonet Charge · conflict · power of humans
The big words for why he is fighting. Etcetera. They fall away when the bullets come.
Probably armed, possibly not
Armitage · Remains · conflict · memory
The soldier shot a looter. He does not know if the man had a gun. The doubt is what stays.
his bloody life in my bloody hands
Armitage · Remains · conflict · memory
Bloody as blood and bloody as a swear word. The last line. It echoes Macbeth.
He's here in my head when I close my eyes
Armitage · Remains · memory · conflict
He came home. The dead man came with him.
spasms of paper red
Weir · Poppies · conflict · loss · memory
Paper poppies on a blazer. Spasms sounds like pain. A mother pins one on her son.
I was brave, as I walked with you, to the front door
Weir · Poppies · loss · conflict
The front door is her front line. She has to be brave to let him go.
the world overflowing like a treasure chest
Weir · Poppies · loss · conflict
To the son, leaving is exciting. To the mother it is loss.
A hundred agonies in black and white
Duffy · War Photographer · conflict · memory
A hundred photos of pain. The editor will pick five or six.
spools of suffering set out in ordered rows
Duffy · War Photographer · conflict · memory
The film rolls in his darkroom. Suffering, filed neatly.
they do not care
Duffy · War Photographer · conflict
The readers look at his photos over breakfast and forget. The last words of the poem.
They accuse me of absence, they circle me
Rumens · The Emigrée · identity · conflict
The new place blames her for leaving the old one. Her city stands behind her.
a shaven head full of powerful incantations
Garland · Kamikaze · conflict · power of humans
The pilot's head is full of the words that sent him to die.
he must have wondered which had been the better way to die
Garland · Kamikaze · conflict · identity · loss
He turned back and lived. His family never spoke to him again. The last line asks which death was worse.
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