1. War Photographer
By Carole Satyamurti, 1987

2. ‘A picture can speak a thousand words’
War Photographer, By Carole Satyamurti, 1987
‘A picture can speak a thousand words’

3. South Vietnam, 1963

4. South Vietnam, 1968

5. China, 1988

6. Bosnia, 1992

7. The Sudan, 1993

8. Syria, 2015

9. War Photographer, By Carole Satyamurti, 1987
While every picture tells a story, it may not be telling the entire story…

16. Context
Satyamurti is a contemporary poet and who doesn't shy away from painful subjects, such as cancer, war and the fragility of human life.
This poem was written in 1987, at the time of several major conflicts including: the Iran/Iraq war, the various wars in South Africa (not including the apartheid struggle), the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, the Lebanon War, the Sri Lankan civil war and the 2nd Sudanese civil war.
The poem draws on the experience of modern warfare and the arbitrary nature of suffering, not a specific conflict.

17. War Photographer

18. IMAGERY: simple alliterative metaphor to suggest how a photograph captures a moment in time and doesn’t tell the whole story. It can reassure you that all is ok. By the end of poem, a much darker TONE is established… foreshadowing
The reassurance of the frame is flexible
– you can think that just outside it
people eat, sleep, love normally
while I seek out the tragic, the absurd,
to make a subject.
Us at home. Ignorant of the world…
LANG: effective noun choices – (s)He has to look for the ‘bad’ things as ‘bad’ things sell newspapers! 

19. IMAGERY: metaphor continues
IMAGERY: metaphor continues. We respond to ‘happy’ pictures and are ‘convinced’ that this must be the truth…
Link to LAST STANZA
Or if the picture’s such as lifts the heart
the firmness of the edges can convince you
this is how things are
Poet’s message? ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’
A moral dilemma is created for the photographer: his pictures can distort the truth so he should stop, but to stop would mean that the images he captures would never be seen by the wider world…

20. Ladies Day at Royal Ascot – horse-racing / betting / fun
IMAGERY: An example to reinforce their previous statement. Pic is nice / happy = this is the truth. A classic ‘feel-good’ pic.
– as when at Ascot once
I took a pair of peach, sun-gilded girls
rolling, silk-crumpled, on the grass
in champagne giggles
Suggests WEALTH and IGNORANCE of suffering elsewhere in the world.

21. IMAGERY: A CONTRASTING example to juxtapose previous image
IMAGERY: A CONTRASTING example to juxtapose previous image. Pic is grim / distressing = this is the real truth. Reinforced by use of sibilance for effect.
– as last week, when I followed a small girl
staggering down some devastated street,
hip thrust out under a baby’s weight.
She saw me seeing her; my finger pressed.

22. IMAGERY: Alliteration for graphic effect
IMAGERY: This is the terrible reality. ‘first’ suggests many more will follow…
At the corner, the ­first bomb of the morning
shattered the stones.
Instinct prevailing, she dropped her burden
and, mouth too small for her dark scream,
began to run…
LANG: Creates an horrific image = poor girl’s natural human instinct to survive overtakes her (sisterly?) duties to her sibling. Effective NOUN choice – in ‘real’ world, a baby can be a burden 
IMAGERY/LANG: Use of SENSES. Horrific. Her mouth is ‘too small’ for the scream that she gives . Effective ADJ: Dark suggestive of a life that has seen too much death and destruction
STRUCTURE: ellipsis creates a ‘cliff-hanger’ – what has happened to her?

23. The picture that is printed changes the actual situation; it’s a simplistic LIE: she looks like she’s smiling! The media –consuming public will be happy and won’t challenge the system . Link to stanza 1.
IMAGERY: Often, war affects the innocent. Link back to stanza 1: 'The frame is flexible‘ = we choose to see what we want when in reality it should shake us out of our Western complacency!
The picture showed the little mother
the almost-smile. Their caption read
‘Even in hell the human spirit
triumphs over all.’
But hell, like heaven, is untidy,
its boundaries
arbitrary as a blood stain on a wall.
In reality, it’s no ‘triumph’. She had to drop the baby to survive the blast.
LANG: Poet’s voice takes over: reflects on the senseless of war - the random nature of suffering which makes victims of innocent babies.
IMAGERY / STRUCTURE: ambiguous (strange) ending – was this the dropped baby? 

24. Structure Five stanzas of free verse.
The poem sounds like natural speech - no rhyme or rhythm and little figurative language. Rather, the thoughts of a war photographer.
The poem begins in the present tense as the speaker reflects on his/her ‘art’ and its limitations. It then moves to the past as two contrasting photos are described. It concludes in the present, with the poet reflecting on the pity of war.