Exam (elaborations)
A* revision notes on Poppies by Jane Weir POWER AND CONFLICT GCSE
- Module
- ENGLISH LITERATURE
- Institution
- GCSE
An A* analysis of Poppies GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE - Power and Conflict Anthology
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“Poppies”Poppies is a 21st century poem by the Anglo-Italian poet Jane Weir. Weir was born in Italy in
1963 and grew up in Italy and Manchester. She moved to Northern Ireland during ‘the Troubles’
in the 1980s and so has experienced conflict in a close and personal way.
Poppies was her response to a commission for war poems by the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann
Duffy. This, and nine other poems, appeared in The Guardian newspaper in 2009. Her poem
was a response to the losses already suffered during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She felt,
as the mother of two teenage boys, that speaking from a mother’s perspective about loss
would be powerful. She was right – her poem struck a nerve with many mothers who had lost
their children during the conflict. Many people from across Europe contacted her to tell her
about how the poem had struck them. She has since said that she was thinking specifically of
Susan Owen (mother of the World War I poet, Wilfred Owen) when writing this piece.
Context summary:
Poppies is a contemporary poem
Jane Weir was born in Italy in 1963 and spent time in both Italy and Manchester
Weir moved to Ireland through the 80s and experienced first-hand conflict
Poppies was written to portray a mother’s perspective on conflict
Weir said she was thinking of Wilfred Owen’s mother when writing
Three days before Armistice Sunday
and poppies had already been placed
on individual war graves. Before you left,
I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals,
spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade
of yellow bias binding around your blazer.
Sellotape bandaged around my hand,
I rounded up as many white cat hairs
as I could, smoothed down your shirt’s
upturned collar, steeled the softening
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