1. Conflict poems – in brief
Notes on:
Meaning
Structure
Language

2. Structuring your answer…
Both…
However,

3. Flag – John Agard
What's that fluttering in a breeze? It’s just a piece of cloth that brings a nation to its knees. What's that unfurling from a pole? It's just a piece of cloth that makes the guts of men grow bold. What's that rising over a tent? that dares the coward to relent. What's that flying across a field? that will outlive the blood you bleed. How can I possess such a cloth? Just ask for a flag my friend. Then bind your conscience to the end.

4. Meaning Criticising the influence and power a flag can have
Juxtaposes the small material value of the flag, to the symbolic value.

5. Language Questioning – involves audience (first line of every stanza)
Repetition – emphasises ideas “It’s just a piece of cloth”
Idioms – a figure of speech – “brings a nation to its knees”
Alliteration – “blood you bleed”
Direct address – “you”

6. Structure five three-line stanzas.
Each stanza follows an eight-six-eight syllable count
which gives the poem a very fixed, rigid form.
Each stanza opens with a question.
There appears to be more than one voice in the poem, although this isn't completely clear.

7. Compare it to… At the Border, 1979
This poem is also about nations, nationalism and imagined communities.
Contrasting eyes of adult and children.
Poppies
This poem also explores the power of symbolism and the ideas people give to objects.
Poppies, though, takes a different approach to it. Not only are the feelings different (there is sadness and sorrow not anger) but the point of view too.

8. Extract from Out of the Blue – Simon Armitage
but the white of surrender is not yet flying. I am not at the point of launching, leaving.
A bird goes by. The depth is appalling. Appalling that others like me should be wind-milling, wheeling, spiralling, falling. Are your eyes believing, believing? Here in the gills I am still breathing. But tiring, tiring. Sirens below me are wailing, firing. My arm is numb and my nerves are sagging. Do you see me, my love. I am failing. Flagging.
You have picked me out. Through a distant shot of a building burning you have noticed now that a white cotton shirt is twirling, turning. In fact I am waving, waving. Small in the clouds, but waving, waving. Does anyone see a soul worth saving? And when will you come? Do you think you are watching, watching a man shaking crumbs or pegging out washing? I am trying and trying. The heat behind me is searing, searing,

9. Meaning
The poem commemorates the September 11th terrorist attacks in NYC
This section of the poem narrates the perspective of someone trapped inside the building

10. Language Direct mode of address “you” involves audience / voyeuristic
Assonance “wailing, failing”
Focus on participles “–ing” gives poem a simple, loose rhyme
Repetition – highlights desperation
Enjambment – flowing on to next line without punctuation

11. Structure Four-line stanzas – separation for emphasis
Monologue - personal
Short lines emphasise breathlessness of narrator

12. Compare it to… Mametz Wood Both poem deal with large scale death
Relationship between personal tragedy and social history
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Both are public memorials for disasters
Both describe victims

13. Mametz Woods – Owen Sheers
For years afterwards the farmers found them - the wasted young, turning up under their plough blades as they tended the land back into itself. A chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade, the relic of a finger, the blown and broken bird's egg of a skull, all mimicked now in flint, breaking blue in white across this field where they were told to walk, not run, towards the wood and its nesting machine guns. And even now the earth stands sentinel, reaching back into itself for reminders of what happened like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin.
This morning, twenty men buried in one long grave,
a broken mosaic of bone linked arm in arm,
their skeletons paused mid dance-macabre
in boots that outlasted them,
their socketed heads tilted back at an angle
and their jaws, those that have them, dropped open.
As if the notes they had sung
have only now, with this unearthing,
slipped from their absent tongues. 

14. Meaning
Welsh soldiers – during the Battle of Somme in the First World War – were ordered to take ‘Mametz Wood’ a large tree area
The operation was expected to take a few hours – it took 5 days
There were 4,000 casualties and 600 dead – the Wesh succeeded but their bravery and sacrifice was never really acknowledged.

15. Language Prosaic (everyday) language No rhyme scheme
Assonance and alliteration link stanzas
(1) "blades”  "back”  "blade", "blown" and "broken bird's egg” "breaking blue”
(2) "chit" and "china” 
(3) "white", "were","walk… towards the wood” 
(4) "wound working” 
(5) Sibilant "stands sentinel" and "surface of the skin".
(6) Contains the only clear rhyme in the poem: "sung/tongues”.

16. Structure Mametz Wood is written in three-line stanzas.
The length of the lines changes
The use of full-stops shows there is a clear, regular structure within the poem
This structure reflects the changing focus of the poem – from the land (the single stanzas one and four) then bones and people (the paired stanzas that follow).
The final stanza then combines these three elements into a single image: the 'unearthed' skulls singing in celebration.

17. Compare it to… Futility
Both poems are about the deaths of ordinary men in the First World War
Contrast images on men on Earth and memory of the dead
Poppies
Both about death during the war
Sheers focuses on history whereas Poppies shows the fresh pain today embodied in the poppy

18. The Yellow Palm – Robert Minhinnick
As I made my way down Palestine Street
I watched a funeral pass –
all the women waving lilac stems
around a coffin made of glass
and the face of the man who lay within
who had breathed a poison gas.
I heard the call to prayer
and I stopped at the door of the golden mosque
to watch the faithful there
but there was blood on the walls and the muezzin’s eyeswere wild with his despair.
I met two blind beggars
And into their hands I pressed my hands
with a hundred black dinars;
and their salutes were those of the Imperial Guard
in the Mother of all Wars.
As I made my way down Palestine Street
I smelled the wide Tigris,
the river smell that lifts the air
in a city such as this;
but down on my head fell the barbarian sun
that knows no armistice.
I saw a Cruise missile,
a slow and silver caravan
on its slow and silver mile,
and a beggar child turned up his face
and blessed it with a smile.
under the yellow palms
I saw their branches hung with yellow dates
all sweeter than salaams,
and when that same child reached up to touch,
the fruit fell in his arms.

19. Meaning The poem explores the war-torn city of Baghdad, Iraq
Iraq first came to the attention of the world after the Gulf War in 1990.
Since then, the ordinary people of Iraq have suffered: in 2003 an allied army (led by the USA) invaded to liberate the country from their dictator Saddam Hussein.
Although he was removed from power, the country has continued to suffer from conflict and chaos – even from their own people during the power struggle following Hussein’s removal.

20. Language
Contrast to show tension in the country (such as: the title/opening line
Concluding image of fruit falling in to child’s arms could be a note of hope for the future (contrast to opening funeral)
The triple rhyme scheme gives the poem energy.
Positive and negative rhymes “pass”/”gas” – separated/torn apart
In the last stanzathe feeling of hope and harmony is expressed through the repetition of positive rhymes: "palms", "salaams" and "arms".

21. Structure The poem is written in the form of a ballad.
Ballads use a strong rhythm and rhyme-scheme to tell stories about everyday people. (you could call the stanzas verses)
The lively rhymes contrast with the content.
Each verse begins with the same line, anchoring the poem in a real place.
It is then bound by three rhymes in each verse
In the final two verses this movement towards tragedy is turned around: the Cruise missile becomes a "smile”

22. Compare it to… Mametz Wood
Links a specific place to an event in human history
The Falling Leaves
Linked by imagery rather than theme.
Creates a powerfully critical attitude to war and conflict

23. The Right Word – ImtiazDharker
No words can help me now. Just outside the door, lost in shadows, is a child who looks like mine. One word for you. Outside my door, his hand too steady, his eyes too hard is a boy who looks like your son, too. I open the door. Come in, I say. Come in and eat with us. The child steps in and carefully, at my door, takes off his shoes.
Outside the door, lurking in the shadows, is a terrorist. Is that the wrong description? Outside that door, taking shelter in the shadows, is a freedom fighter. I haven't got this right. Outside, waiting in the shadows, is a hostile militant. Are words no more than waving, wavering flags? Outside your door, watchful in the shadows, is a guerrilla warrior. God help me. Outside, defying every shadow, stands a martyr. I saw his face.

24. Meaning The poem explores prejudice and labeling
Dharker grew up in contrasting cultures (Scotland/Pakistan) and uses her experience
She questions the two identities of a ‘terrorist’: a freedom fighter OR a murderer.

25. Language
The poem is about language and imagery - and how dangerous and unhelpful it can be.
The language is simple and straightforward.
She is trying to be truthful, but finding that every word has political and emotional connotations:
Terrorist – freedom-fighter – militant - guerrilla warrior – martyr – child
Lurking – taking shelter – waiting – watchful – defying – lost
Use of questions in line 4
The shadows are not just literal, they are metaphorical 

26. Structure
The form of the poem mirrors its intention: simple and accurate
The structure changes, fewer lines in the third stanza suggests a conversation with herself
As she “saw his face” and stops using her words, the poem becomes less ambiguous and more clear and confident
The “child who looks like mine” reveals a truth so the poem returns to its confident 3-line form

27. Compare it to… At the Border, 1979
Hardi’s poem also looks at divisions created by the mind
Belfast Confetti
Both come from a similar world: where soldiers are a part of every day life in a world of political and religious conflict

28. At the Border 1979 – ChomanHardi
“It is your last check-in point in this country!” We grabbed a drink- soon everything would taste different. The land under our feet continued divided by a thick iron chain. My sister put her leg across it. “Look over here,” she said to us, “my right leg is in this country and my left leg in the other”. The border guards told her off. My mother informed me: We are going home. She said that the roads are much cleaner the landscape is more beautiful and people are much kinder.
Dozens of families waited in the rain.
“I can inhale home,” somebody said.
Now our mothers were crying. I was five years old
standing by the check-in point
comparing both sides of the border.
The autumn soil continued on the other side
with the same colour, the same texture.
It rained on both sides of the chain.
We waited while our papers were checked,
our faces thoroughly inspected.
Then the chain was removed to let us through.
A man bent down and kissed his muddy homeland.
The same chain of mountains encompassed all of us.

29. Meaning
The writer, an immigrant herself, writes a semi-autobiographical poem
Set at the border of Iran and Northern Iraq in 1979
The narrator questions the use of border control

30. Language The word ‘BORDER’ has lots of connotations
(border between life and death, youth and age, innocence and experience.)
The date of the title fixes this poem in a particular time and place.
There are very few adjectives and these are mostly unexciting: "last" and "different".
Pathetic fallacy "Dozens of families waited in the rain"
Describing the "homeland" as "Muddy" in line 26 shows the contrast between the adult's romantic vision of the place, and the child's simple, clear view of it.

31. Structure The length of the lines and stanzas varies.
There is a sense that where the lines break is arbitrary (random) – in other words follows no rules: reflects the arbitrary nature of borders!
The story is organised around four different perspectives: the guards, the adult refugees and the two children (the five-year-old narrator and her sister).
Stanza one – the border guard and the families.
Stanza two (lines 4 and 5) - the private reflection of the child.
Stanza three - the focus shifts to the sister.
Stanza four – the mother.
Stanza five – the families and mothers crying.
Stanza six – another reflection from the child, repeating the theme of stanza two.
The list of events in the final stanza then moves focus in each sentence until we have a final, concluding observation from the child in line 27.

32. Compare it to…
Flag
Both explore the way ideas of home can be expressed through symbols
Both look at differences created by politicians
Poppies
Both recall family members (child recalling family/mother recalling son)

33. Belfast Confetti – Ciaran Carson
Suddenly as the riot squad moved in, it was raining exclamation marks, Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type. And the explosion. Itself - an asterisk on the map. This hyphenated line, a burst of rapid fire... I was trying to complete a sentence in my head but it kept stuttering, All the alleyways and side streets blocked with stops and colons. I know this labyrinth so well - Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street - Why can’t I escape? Every move is punctuated. Crimea Street. Dead end again. A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon face-shields. Walkie- talkies. What is My name? Where am I coming from? Where am I going? A fusillade of question- marks.

34. Meaning The poem reflects a period of time in Northern Ireland
It began in the 1960s – with the minority Catholic population campaigning against discrimination by the Protestant majority.
By the 1970s, some Irish nationalist groups had started using violence to force the UK government to make the region independent of Britain.
British troops became an everyday presence on the streets of Belfast, the Northern Irish capital. Before long, they became symbols of unwanted occupation and so clashes between protestors and the police/army were common

35. Language
The title creates a striking poetic image – the soft alliteration of 'f' appropriate to the idea of a wedding celebration. In fact it is the sound of a bomb about to go off. (confetti = debris)
Line 3 The poetic language is also pushed out by harsh, unpoetic words.
Carson also lists the street names in lines These work both on a literal level (they describe where he lives and how well he knows these streets) but also the metaphoric level. The streets are named after generals and battles and places from the Crimea War
Force is used when spoken communication has broken down. So Carson cannot complete a sentence. All he can think of is punctuation marks with no words to punctuate.
There are two key sounds that we can hear – the 'f' of the title, then the 'k' of the cracking social order, of the bomb and of the riot-policemen's truncheons. All but four lines contain one or more examples of the sound

36. Structure The lines are over-long and the stanzas stretched.
Confusing structure reflects confusion of the riots
Although confusing form and language – there is a narrative structure (organised story)

37. Compare it to… The Right Word
Both focus on language and the poet’s struggle to describe conflict
Both explore a time where violence and not dialogue (like poetry) is seen as the solution
Both poems are full of doubt
Words are tools that seem to fail them
Next to of course god america i
Both explore how language cannot manage to give meaning to things that are so shocking

38. Poppies – Jane Weir
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 of my face. I wanted to graze my nose across the tip of your nose, play at being Eskimos like we did when you were little. I resisted the impulse to run my fingers through the gelled blackthorns of your hair. All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt,
slowly melting. I was brave, as I walked with you, to the front door, threw it open, the world overflowing like a treasure chest. A split second and you were away, intoxicated. After you'd gone I went into your bedroom, released a song bird from its cage. Later a single dove flew from the pear tree, and this is where it has led me, skirting the church yard walls, my stomach busy making tucks, darts, pleats, hat-less, without a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves. On reaching the top of the hill I traced the inscriptions on the war memorial, leaned against it like a wishbone. The dove pulled freely against the sky, an ornamental stitch. I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind.

39. Meaning
The poem is set in the present but refers back to Poppy Day Tradition
Armistice Sunday began as a way of marking the end of the First World War in 1918
Today the event is used to remember soldiers of all wars
Poppies was written as British soldiers were dying in Iraq and Afghanistan
 The poem explores the grief of a mother losing her son

40. Language The images of touch and feel run throughout the poem.
Different poetic techniques put different levels of meaning into the poem.
Powerful language in stanza one describes the colour and texture of the poppies
alliteration "bias binding… blazer". We feel the closeness between mother and child the moment she kneels to pin the poppy to the lapel.
In words such as "spasms", "disrupting" and "blockade" however, she may be also recalling the violence of his death.
In the third stanza, the language becomes metaphorical and symbolic.
(The door to the house is the door to the world. The song-bird is a metaphor for the mother setting the child free. This then changes into the dove, the symbol of peace – but here the peace the son has found is only the peace of death.)

41. Structure
The poem appears to have a strong, regular sense of form. There are four clear stanzas.
caesuras. Over half of the lines have breaks in the middle (commas or full stops)
"Three days before" (line 1)
"Before you left" (line 3)
"After you'd gone" (line 23)
"later" (line 25)
"this is where it has led me" on line 26.
The time sequence keeps changing along with her emotions. It goes from  past to present

42. Compare it to… Futility Emotional impact linking battlefield to home
Drawing on rich natural imagery to contrast with death
Falling Leaves
Similar tone: contrast between calm delivery and violent subject matter
Both written by women and offer a female perspective on a subject that is dominated by men

43. Futility – Wilfred Own
Move him into the sun— Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it awoke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know. Think how it wakes the seeds— Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides Full-nerved,—still warm,—too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? —O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?

44. Meaning
Wilfred Owen fought in the war, after being treated for shell shock in the UK, he was sent back to war
The poem explores ‘futility’: a sense of pointlessness
It reflects Owen’s own belief that his involvement in the war (liberating the Belgians from German occupation) was actually centered around land ownership.

45. Language
The title of the poem is blunt, simple and strong. 'bleak realism'
"move him", "gently", "whispering", "rouse" all suggest a soft, motherly force. The sun is "kind" and "old". - Sun is a positive force, imagery of waking up
HOWEVER…
Oxymoron ‘cold star’ – contradiction.
Instead of the "kind old sun", all the poet can now see is "fatuous sunbeams“ working away. "Fatuous" means stupid but thinking you are clever.
The half-rhymes bring the poem together. For example in stanza one sun-sown, once-France.
There are full rhymes (snow-know and tall-all) at the ends of the stanzas. 

46. Structure
Futility is written in 14 lines like a sonnet. It is not structured like one though. This poem has two seven-line stanzas.
The two-stanza structure reflects the poem's change in tone, from hope and confidence to despair.

47. Compare it to… Falling Leaves
Close in theme and use of imagery (farming/tree)
Contrast in form, structure and tone (sadness rather than anger)
Bayonet Charge
Also set during first world war
Shares some imagery (walking, clods of earth)
Contast: Owen’s is more first person reflection, Hughes’ is a dramatic reenactment

48. The Charge of the Light Brigades – Alfred Tennyson
1. Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! "Charge for the guns!" he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. 2. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. 3. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred. 4.
Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn'd in air, Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while  All the world wonder'd: Plunged in the battery-smoke Right thro' the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reel'd from the sabre stroke  Shatter'd and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not  Not the six hundred. 5.
Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them  Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them,  Left of six hundred. 6.
When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made!  All the world wondered. Honor the charge they made, Honor the Light Brigade,  Noble six hundred

49. Meaning
The poem explores a battle fought during the Crimean War (Britain, France and Turkey were fighting against Russia over an area of land called the Crimean Peninsula)
The Battle of Balaclava: an order given to the British army cavalry division (the Light Brigade) was misunderstood and 600 cavalrymen ended charging down a narrow valley straight into the fire of Russian cannons.
Over 150 British soldiers were killed, and more than 120 were wounded.
 At home, the story was a sensation and people began to question military involvement abroad

50. Language Rhythm reflects meaning – like a horse galloping
Repetition:"Cannon to the right of them, / Cannon to the left of them, / Cannon in front of them“ – reflected relentlessness of war
Alliteration: "Storm'd at with shot and shell" 's' sounds reflect the viciousness of the attack faced by the Light Brigade.
Tennyson uses a rhetorical question "When can their glory fade?" After the five previous stanzas the answer to this question is clear: their glory should not fade!
The poem offers a balance of glorious language, which celebrates the Brigade, and graphic description of the danger they faced.

51. Structure
There are six numbered stanzas, as if each stanza is a memorial stone to 100 of the 600 cavalrymen.
The first three stanzas have a strong pattern suggesting the strong formation in which the cavalry charged
In stanza two the Light Brigade encounter trouble – and so the structure starts to break down
The desperate attempt to retreat is expressed in the run of six longer lines (43-48).
Stanza six is a short, sharp conclusion written as if they are the lines we should remember the Light Brigade by.

52. Compare it to… Mametz Wood
 Also about remembering soldiers that have died
Bayonet Charge
Linked by subject matter: soldier charging in battle
Different view: Tennyson creates whole action, whereas Hughes is much closer to the action

53. Bayonet Charge – Ted Hughes
Suddenly he awoke and was running – raw In raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy, Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge That dazzled with rifle fire, hearing Bullets smacking the belly out of the air – He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm; The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest, - In bewilderment then he almost stopped – In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations Was he the hand pointing that second? He was running Like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs Listening between his footfalls for the reason Of his still running, and his foot hung like Statuary in mid-stride. Then the shot-slashed furrows Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame And crawled in a threshing circle, its mouth wide Open silent, its eyes standing out. He plunged past with his bayonet toward the green hedge, King, honour, human dignity, etcetera Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm To get out of that blue crackling air His terror’s touchy dynamite.

54. Meaning The poem describes 'going over-the-top'.
This was when soldiers hiding in trenches were ordered to 'fix bayonets' (attach the long knives to the end of their rifles) and climb out of the trenches to charge an enemy position twenty or thirty metres away.
The aim was to capture the enemy trench.
The poem describes how this process transforms a solider from a living thinking person into a dangerous weapon of war

55. Language
Feelings are presented in images you can see as well as images you can hear.
Repetition of words and sounds right from the beginning.
Stanza one uses the repeated 'h' sound that expresses the soldier's heavy breathing.
The rich descriptions contrast with where the solider is heading - a simple, almost childish description – line 3.
Similes like those found in line 8 bring a sense of hell to the battlefield.

56. Structure
Line lengths vary – suggest quick and slow progress of soldiers
The poem is written in three stanzas.
Stanza one: Action and running
The flow is disjointed because of the dashes ‘ – ’
The second stanza therefore happens in a kind of slow-motion (note the three lines that are broken in the middle by punctuation – lines 11, 14 and 15).
The second half of line 15 breaks this spell and he knows he has to rush, without thinking, towards his death in the final stanza.

57. Compare it to… Futility Another First World War trenches poem
Horror of war from different perspective
Both contrast war and nature
Belfast Confetti
Actual experience of conflict
Range of language techniques to present feelings of fear and confusion
Both use form and structure to convey noise and conflict
Both show how language and thought are hindered when challenged by action and violence

58. The Falling Leaves – Margaret Postgate Cole
Today, as I rode by, I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree In a still afternoon, When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky, But thickly, silently, They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon; And wandered slowly thence For thinking of a gallant multitude Which now all withering lay, Slain by no wind of age or pestilence, But in their beauty strewed Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.

59. Meaning
The Falling Leaves is a woman's response to the huge number of men who died in the First World War.
By November 1915, when The Falling Leaves was written, thousands of soldiers were dying for the sake of a few hundred metres of gained territory.
In 1915 alone, the French lost over one million men, the Germans more than 600,000 and the British more than a quarter of a million.

60. Language The careful rhyme scheme expresses a calm control.
The '-ing' sound is also repeated throughout the poem (in the title, and lines 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 12). This suggests that while the poet is out for a quiet ride on a still afternoon, soldiers are continuing to die in huge numbers, unseen and unheard hundreds of miles away.
Line 6 contrasts snowflakes and total destruction.
The poet then starts to use Biblical imagery and language, for example line 10.
The emotion is expressed by contrasting this violent imagery with the sad reality of what is happening. These men are now rotting like leaves.

61. Structure
The Falling Leaves is tightly structured with a highly regular form.
There are twelve lines of alternate lengths: six syllables followed by ten.
The poem also follows a strict rhyme scheme, with the rhymes in groups of three: lines 1 and 4, lines 2 and 5 and line 3 and 6.
The poem is therefore built from a series of contrasts: the short and long lines; the first half and second half of the poem.
In the first half, Cole sets up gentle contrasts between the rider and the leaves, then the leaves and snowflakes.
In the second half of the poem, the poem is more angry, with contrasts between the poet and the dying soldiers, then the soldiers and the snowflakes.

62. Compare it to… Futility Also during First World War
Anger at the death war brings
Contrast in points of view
Both poets use nature imagery
Poppies
Powerful female voice
Different relationship with subject matter (child/all mankind)
Both poets express the emotion felt at being so far away from the events that are bringing them grief

63. ‘Come on, Come Back’ – Stevie Smith
Left by the ebbing tide of battle On the field of Austerlitz The girl soldier Vaudevue sits Her fingers tap the ground, she is alone At midnight in the moonlight she is sitting alone on a round flat stone. Graded by the Memel Conference first Of all human exterminators M L 5 Has left her just alive Only her memory is dead for evermore. She fears and cries, Ah me, why am I here? Sitting alone on a round flat stone on a hummock there. Rising, staggering, over the ground she goes Over the seeming miles of rutted meadow To the margin of a lake The sand beneath her feet Is cold and damp and firm to the waves' beat. Quickly - as a child, an idiot, as one without memory - She strips her uniform off, strips, stands and lunges Into the icy waters of the adorable lake. On the surface of the water lies A ribbon of white moonlight The waters on either side of the moony track Are black as her mind, Her mind is as secret from her As the water on which she swims, As secret as profound as ominous.

64. Weeping bitterly for her ominous mind, her plight, Up the river of white moonlight she swims Until a treacherous undercurrent Seizing her in an icy amorous embrace Dives with her, swiftly severing The waters which close above her head. An enemy sentinel Finding the abandoned clothes Waits for the swimmer's return ('Come on, come back') Waiting, whiling away the hour Whittling a shepherd's pipe from the hollow reeds. In the chill light of dawn Ring out the pipe's wild notes 'Come on, come back.' Vaudevue In the swift and subtle current's close embrace Sleeps on, stirs not, hears not the familiar tune Favourite of all the troops of all the armies Favourite of Vaudevue For she had sung it too Marching to Austerlitz, 'Come on, come back'.

65. Meaning
The strange mix of comedy and tragedy in her poems has its roots in her childhood.
She developed a great independence as a child, helped in part by the role a strong, feminist aunt played in her upbringing. She also struggled with depression throughout her adult years.
 The poem is about 'a future war' but some of the events it refers to are real.
For example:
The Battle of Austerlitz was one of the biggest battles of the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century.
The Potsdam conference was a meeting held in 1945 between Britain, the US and the USSR (Soviet Russia) at the end of the Second World War to decide what would happen to Germany once the war ended.
Stevie Smith therefore draws on the idea of great nations making decisions that affect the lives of ordinary people in towns and villages across the world.

66. Language some words unclear M.L.5
The poem does not have a conventional rhyme scheme.
The different line lengths highlight the way the rhyme is awkward and artificial.
There is also a lot of repetition for example lines 5 and 12.
Finally, there is a great deal of alliteration for example the 'V' is Vaudevue's name.
Most of the imagery is about moonlight and water. This gives the poem a dream-like quality.

67. The poem is written in free verse, which means it has no clear form.
This form gives the poem a strange, uneasy feel. It has no regular pattern. We do not know where we are in time or space (positioned with voice!)
Structure
Each stanza ends in a full stop and tells a clear part of the story – but a lack of punctuation within the stanzas means the meaning is sometimes unclear. This gives the poem the feeling of a dream.
Stanza one - Vaudevue is left on a battlefield at night.
Stanza two - she is scared.
Stanza three - she heads off to a lake nearby.
Stanza four - she swims up river.
Stanza five - she is drowned.
Stanza six - a border guard (sentinel) finds her clothes and calls out across the water for the owner to return.
Stanza seven - he then carries on calling, playing a pipe he has made while waiting.
Stanza eight - the song turns out to be a favourite marching song of soldiers everywhere. Vaudevue does not come back, however, because she is already dead.

68. Compare it to… Mametz Wood
Both draw on strong images to convey a sense of hidden emotional meaning
Both use music to contrast with loud violence of war
Both contrast the horror of war with a sense of comedy that makes us human: Sheers sees the skeletons arm-in-arm in their 'dance-macabre' and Smith gives us echoes of vaudeville stage entertainment.
Poppies
Both express feelings of sadness and conflict
Focus on images of beauty and innocence (son’s childhood, dove / lonely girl soldier)
Both searching for consolation in the face of death

69. next to of course god america i – E.E. Cummings
"next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country 'tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beaut- iful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”

70. Meaning Cummings was known for being a pacifist
During WWI, Cummings was arrested in France (because of his views)
It is a satirical poem – it makes a joke out of people encouraging patroritsm
 In the 19th century, the United States was not as powerful as Britain and Germany. When these two destroyed each other in the First World War, the US became the most powerful nation on earth. Cummings did not want his own country to make the same mistakes as those in Europe.

71. Language This poem is satirical –patriotism is dangerous and empty).
The grammar is strange, so they don't seem to make sense (like patriotism doesn’t make sense?)
Lower case = not important
Uses clichés:
Sound
l.3: a line from the Star Spangled Banner, the US national anthem.
l.4: a line from 'My Country, 'Tis of Thee' the US national anthem until 1931.
l.5: a reference to a speech from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
l.7: from the Bible, referring to God.
l.8: taken from a popular song of the time.
l.11: a reference to a political poem by Shelley where he urges people to 'rise like lions after slumber' and bring down the British government.

72. Structure mix of avantgarde (modern) style with traditional themes.
Look closer, however, and you will notice the form of the poem is a traditional sonnet: it has 14 lines and a rhyme scheme that structures the poem into three sections: lines 1-4, 5-8 and 9-14.
The rhythm is also tightly structured: it moves in a pattern between 10, 11 and 9 beats per line, before breaking into 12 beats in the final line.

73. Compare it to… Belfast Confetti
Shares an interest in form and language
Both explore the failure of language to articulate feelings
The Right Word
Complete contrast: Cummings’ rattles out words without thinking whereas Dharker worries painfully over every word she uses

74. Hawk Roosting – Ted Hughes
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.  Inaction, no falsifying dream  Between my hooked head and hooked feet:  Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.  The convenience of the high trees!  The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray  Are of advantage to me;  And the earth's face upward for my inspection.  My feet are locked upon the rough bark.  It took the whole of Creation  To produce my foot, my each feather:  Now I hold Creation in my foot.
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -  I kill where I please because it is all mine.  There is no sophistry in my body:  My manners are tearing off heads -  The allotment of death.  For the one path of my flight is direct  Through the bones of the living.  No arguments assert my right:  The sun is behind me.  Nothing has changed since I began.  My eye has permitted no change.  I am going to keep things like this.

75. Meaning We can interpret the poem:
literally (celebrating the hawk itself). The hawk is a bird of prey, known for its intelligence and incredibly sharp eyesight. In medieval times hawks were also used by kings and aristocrats for hunting.
metaphorically (exploring themes associated with the bird). We talk about being hawk-eyed - observant. We also think about politicians being 'hawkish' or hawk-like, which means being aggressive towards other countries, favouring, for example, military intervention.

76. Language
There is one key sound that echoes through all the stanzas. This is the long 'ee' sound for example found four times in stanza one. This sound runs throughout the poem. This may suggest the only sound to be heard throughout the wood is the screeching of the hawk itself.
The other sound effect is repetition of words referring to itself - the hawk's references to itself appear in every stanza. This shows how egocentric and self-important the bird is.
The language is simple. The words found in stanza two are words you might find in an office. This kind of language contrasts with the threatening language of violence as in line 16. This contrast suggests a leader trying to be a calm sophisticated politician, while really he is a violent thug.
The use of negatives (no) in lines 2, 15, 20 and 23 makes the phrases sound like political slogans. They suggest the hawk is rejecting the political process, relying instead on brute force (line 16).
He also says he does not use clever language in line 15 and arguments to put his case forward - line 20 but then, in line 21, suggests the sun supports his arguments and is behind him.

77. Structure
This poem has a strong, regular form. It is written in six stanzas of four lines each. The length of the lines vary, but even the shorter lines still express strong, controlled ideas (e.g. line 21). So the overall effect of the form is to express strength and control.
The first two stanzas are about his physical superiority – both in what his body is like and where he can sit.
Stanzas three and four reveal his power of nature, and how he holds everything, including life and death, in his claws.
The final two stanzas form a kind of justification for his actions. He explains why he is not just right because of physical superiority but also the way he acts without deception (and he has the support of the sun to prove it!).
The structure takes us through different aspects of his thought process, it arrives where it began. The poem begins and ends in lines beginning with 'I'. This underlines the key idea of the poem: he is a ruler who will continue to rule exactly how he pleases for years to come.

78. Compare it to… next to of course god america I Political speech
Both suggest the same conclusion: violence and death for the weak
The Falling Leaves
Uses nature as a source of negative imagery about conflict (leaves/hawk)
Language and tone are very different, but the effect is the same: nature offers a timeless backdrop to the meaning of the poems