 Hello and welcome to our video summarising all you need to know about the conflict poetry anthology which is part of the edexcel anthology as well as the edexcel exams when it comes to English literature. My name is Barbara and in this video we'll examine all the poems in this anthology. We'll begin by looking at the poet's background as part of your context as well as analysing each poem. So let's get started. Now this collection begins with a Poison Tree by William Blake. Now a little bit about William Blake himself. He was born on the 28th November 1757. He's not only an English poet but also known as a visionary of his time. He was a painter, a printmaker and art was always what attracted his poetry. He belonged to what we call the Romantic Era whereby poems depict emotions, consequences of emotions as well as nature. Nature is really seen as the highest manifestation of innocence and anything to do with the city is seen as somewhat corrupting. Although he wasn't really recognised during his time he turned out to be really famous posthumously. Now let's have a look at the poem itself, A Poison Tree. So it's one of his most appreciated works and essentially it's part of a wider anthology of William Blake his own which is called Songs of Experience which was a follow-on from a previous anthology called Songs of Innocence and it was published in 1789. Now the poem itself Poison Tree has four different stanzas. It starts as a first person poem where the poet is expressing his anger and hatred towards his enemy. The poem then takes a turn and the pronoun I is replaced with the word or the pronoun it to depict the feelings of the enemy. The poet uses a metaphorical style for instance, Apple depicts his vengeance, Tree depicts his loss of patience underneath which he kills his enemy and so on. Also Blake in this poem uses End Rhyme which really drives the message home. As in the first, second, third and fourth line of the poem's first stanza you can see the words friend and end and both at the end of the respective lines which rhyme such as also for and grow. Now let's look more closely at the first stanza. So the poet is expressing his anger towards his friend as well as his foe in this stanza. Also do you bear in mind that it can also be the narrator so it just doesn't always refer to Blake himself whilst writing about this you can also just refer simply to the narrator. However the voice appears to be really angry towards this foe and he has depicted the difference between two types of anger. He states that when you're angry with a friend you convince your heart to forgive him. Even though you were hurt and you know that he did an injustice to you you try your best to forget the past and end the feeling of vengeance in your heart. However when you're angry with an enemy it takes a long time for you to calm your anger yet the anger and feeling of vengeance doesn't diminish even with time in fact this feeling simply grows. Now in the second stanza the narrator is trying to make a confession that it is he who's solely responsible for the hatred that's grown in his heart for his enemy and it's he who's increased the vengeance in his heart. He's nurtured this hatred with his fears spending hours together crying for the ill that's been caused to him by his enemy. Now in the third stanza the speaker states that it's because of his dwelling in the same hatred that this hatred has grown every day. The hatred has metaphorically speaking given birth to an apple and this fruit signifies the evil that has taken birth in the heart of the poet. He states that it's now come to a point where he can't really turn back and forget his enemy you can't forget about him until he does something to soothe this vengeance. And finally the day comes when the speaker's enemy has met the evil fruit of vengeance and his grown his fears tears and sarcasm and the fruit has now turned into a weapon. Now in the fourth stanza as the narrator states the very next morning this purpose is served. When the speaker wakes up and glimpses the garden he sees something that relaxes his mind and calms the vengeance forever. The darkness of the night acted like an invisible cloak for them and now it's a beautiful morning. And there lying is his enemy dead under the tree of his hatred. He bit the poisoned apple of the speaker's vengeance in other words he was murdered. Now let's move on to the second poem in this collection which is The Destruction of Senator Cherub by Lord Byron. Now Lord Byron himself was born in 1788 in other words he was a contemporary of William Blake. His father died when he was three with the result that he inherited his title from his great uncle in 1798. Byron spent his early years in Aberdeen and was educated at Harris core as well as Cambridge University. And in many ways when we look at his work he was seen as the ideal of the romantic poet. And one of the things that's really important contextually is that he gained a great deal of notoriety for a lot of his scandalous affairs whilst he was married. And many people described him as mad, bad and dangerous to know. Now when it comes to the poem itself The Destruction of Senator Cherub. This is a narrative poem that tells the story of how God destroys King Senator Cherub's Assyrian army as they attack the city of Jerusalem. This story is found in the Old Testament though it's an episode that's probably unfamiliar to quite a few people who are not very familiar with the Bible. Now in the Bible Senator Cherub attempted to besiege Jerusalem. When his soldiers came upon all the fenced cities of Judah they tried to take them and so Hezekiah the king of Judah prayed to God and received the reply through the prophet Isaiah that he could defend his city save it for God's own sake. And in the night an avenging angel visited Senator Cherub's camp and destroyed this army pushing Senator Cherub to return to Nineveh. So this poem is essentially based on this story taken from the Bible. Now it's worth pointing out that this siege of Jerusalem is actually historically known to have happened and this happened around 701 BC. So of course this is really important contextual knowledge to know. Now Byron takes and writes this poem and it's events chronologically which starts the Assyrians besieging Jerusalem and it moves on to an angel who visits the camp quietly killing everything it comes into contact with and here Byron does take some liberties pulling forth gratuitous and wondrous imagery of the siege and the murder of the Assyrian army. Now let's look at the first stanza. There is despite the simplicity of this stanza a certain ferocity that's evoked in the phrase that Assyrian came down like the wolf in the fold. This phrase in the stanza is certain to refer to Senator Cherub and it works to evoke the image of his ferocity, his single minded pursuit of Jerusalem as well as his grace and deadly power. Also the image of the wolf on the fold serves to give the reader half a view into a very different world which is wild, dangerous where a wolf or a predator is constantly at the door. Also notice the vividness of the colours that Byron has used in this stanza. At the time purple and gold was seen as a royal combination of colours so Byron appears unabashed in this description of Senator Cherub outfitting him as a modern king should be outfitted. There are also references to the points of the spears as stars in the sea which further emphasises Senator Cherub's own power. He's so unwittingly strong that he seems to encompass the universe and the soldiers look nothing more like marauding stars gleaming larger than life in the darkness. There are constant as we can tell when we read the next line, which is when the blue wave rolls nightly on the deep galley. The Assyrian soldiers have therefore been waiting for quite some time outside of the city of Jerusalem and one can assume that this is quite late into the siege. Now in the second stanza Byron evokes the core tenets of romanticism. Do you remember what I mentioned with regards to romantic era whereby in many ways a lot of romantic poets in the 1700s essentially used nature in a lot of their writing in nature to some degree was seen as encompassing innocence but always remember when it comes to romantic era nature is really powerful. Now in this case Byron is evoking romanticism by comparing the evading Assyrian army to leaves in the summer. They are plentiful, vibrant with life and very much aware of the presence in the world. And then in the next stanza he carries on with this imagery and he refers to them as, and to quote from the poem, leaves of the forest when the autumn hath blown. It's amazing how this simple turn of phrase creates an image in the mind of the reader. From there Byron writes into quote, the hosts on the morrow lay withered and strewn and this brings up such a mental picture of the broken bodies of the soldier lying scattered all around the ground smiten where they stood by God's avenging angel who, depending on the Bible that you're reading, can take the name Angelos Kiru or Malakha El Horim. Now in the third stanza the angel of death makes his appearance. One can see how Byron took the imagery in his own liberties and there's something especially beautiful about how he describes the angel of death here. This angel of death isn't violent, isn't angry. He appears and moves slowly through the soldiers breathing in their faces and that's all he needs to do. It helps the reader to understand just how strong the will of God is and just how terrifying an alien and deadly the idea of God's angels are and it's worth noting that in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, angels were considered terrifying. They were considered otherworldly beings that looked utterly inhuman and horrifying to the masses hence it wasn't surprising that the first word they spoke to people in several instances especially in the Bible was be not afraid or a variation of this. Death is also depicted as a gradual process to quote from the poem and the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly in chill but death is also quite instant. It's not terribly long and it doesn't hurt. One minute someone is alive, they breathe and the next they cease existing and they're cold and chilly on the ground. Now in the fourth stanza Byron takes one step further and describes the dead soldiers to quote and there lay the steed with his nostril all wild and he writes somehow the image of this horse brought low and far more animated than the death of the soldiers. There's an element of fighting in the way even the horse died note the words the foam of his agasping which occurs when a horse is particularly scared or worried. Note the reference to rock beating surf which is an expression that calls back the wildness of the waves forever stilled now in terms of the horse. It's almost as though the horse has understood something far more than what the soldier did and knew it was dying in the way that the soldier couldn't comprehend. Now in the fifth stanza compared to it then to the peacefulness of the death of the rider all we are given is a view of how he lay distorted and pale and how there was into quote a dew on his brow and rust on his mill and how the tents were all silent the banners alone. There's a lot of stillness in this stanza as compared to the wild death of the horse the silence when in the previous stanza there wasn't very little of the silence. None of the soldiers fought back none of the soldiers knew what happened to them death was a sudden driving process taking them unawares and breaking the army to pieces in a single night. In the final stanza the sixth stanza that activity returns but not from the dead army of Sennacherib however from others their wives mothers their families to quote from the poem the widows are of ashore allowed in their well the idols are broken on the temple of Baal this shows that whatever happened to the army of Sennacherib is almost a perversity. Now let's move on to the next poem extract from the prelude by William Wordsworth Now Wordsworth himself again is a romantic poet and he was born in 1770 in Cumbria his father was a lawyer however both of his parents died before he was 15 and he and his four siblings were taken and left in the care of different relatives as a young man Wordsworth developed a love of nature and this theme is reflected in many of his poetry now when it comes to the poem itself the prelude this poem presents two contrasting ideas about nature and allows the reader to decide what nature means to him or her the context of this extract is from the prelude which is a much longer poem so do bear in mind that this comes from the original poem which is far longer this poem provides insight into the speaker and the author this poem explores Wordsworth's own childhood arguably and the ways in which he's changed and grown over time the poem begins the speaker as a boy and explores his feelings of peace with nature then an event occurs which changes his feelings towards the world which represents the boy coming of age and understanding the dangers of the world in other words losing the innocence now let's begin with the first 16 lines of this poem the opening lines reveal the speaker's relationship with her or nature so bear in mind that nature is personified within this poem as a woman nature leads him to a boat and it's clear that the speaker has a really peaceful view of nature as he rose out onto the peaceful waters led gently by nature herself as he rose he could hear and to quote mountain echoes and small circles glittering as his boat made ripples in the water he then describes a sparkling light as it reflects off the surface of the water and while enjoying all that nature has to offer in the moment the narrator fixes his gaze on the destination he's set out to reach a craggy ridge and he looks up at the horizon's utmost boundary and sees and to quote nothing but stars and the grey sky in these opening lines is a really tranquil and beautiful picture of nature and a young person's ability and we can argue it's a young boy's ability to engage with it to some extent also have some mastery over it now in line 1720 we start learning the boy's understanding of his own ability to control nature even if he had a small boat but an elf in pinnance he was still able to control his little boat and cut through the river like a swan or in other words the water like a swan now in lines 21 to 31 there's a drastic shift in tone as this person encounters some type of beast that can only be described as and to quote from the poem black and huge whatever it was it upreared its head so this thing is personified and even though the speaker struck out at the beast again and again and as he also tried to row again and again this thing just continues to rise and grow bigger and even more menacing the speaker thought it seemed as though it had a purpose of its own this beast strode after him it was chasing after him and suddenly the speaker is no longer enjoying what he felt initially was an peaceful encounter with nature now there's something to fear greatly he turns his boat around and makes his way back and to quote with trembling oars this change has an important impact on both the reader as well as the speaker while the opening lines as we've mentioned paint a picture of the speaker as someone who's really peaceful and one with nature experiencing great joy in the peaceful waters these lines mark an important change in other words a Volta the experience the speaker has here reveals that nature is not always man's friend in fact there are mysterious and dangerous things hidden within nature nature is suddenly now something not only to be enjoyed but also be feared and to some degree respected now in lines 32 to 44 this reveals the effect that this experience has had on the speaker after having encountered this dark side of nature which has terrified him he's become aware that he's not in control and he wasn't able to subdue it and use it to his pleasure and this continues to haunt him obviously symbolizing his removal from innocence and into experience as he realizes the darker side of nature the speaker reflects on what and to quote from the poem used to be pleasant images of trees or sky and now they are huge and mighty forms that do not live these thoughts therefore and to quote were a trouble to his dreams by night and through the mind by day this shows he's really haunted now by this realization of nature the speaker suddenly fears what he had not feared before and it symbolizes moving from childhood to adulthood now let's move on to the next poem in this collection the man he killed by Thomas Hardy now Hardy is a Victorian writer and he lived through the experiences of war firsthand he also had a keen interest in history and also one thing to bear in mind is a lot of his romantic relationships did fall apart so a lot of the things that he also talks about reflects the cynicism when it comes to romance and love however in this case his first hand experiences of war and the destructive nature of war are really reflected now when it comes to the poem the man he killed he wrote this as a way to explore his feelings about the war wars which were going on during this time and bear in mind that Great Britain was essentially engaged in the war war on South African soil against the Dutch now a lot of people at the time during this war so this is during the Victorian age actually supported Great Britain so do you remember that Great Britain at this time was expanding its empire and hence why it was there in South Africa however it came across the Dutch settlers who also were trying to establish their own territory and their own form of colonialism in South Africa so of course there was conflict now Hardy's poem talks about this particular conflict and he makes this war and its impacts really vivid and really personal this poem follows a simple rhyme scheme there's an ABAB rhyme scheme and the result ironically is that there's an almost nursery rhyme kind of feeling even if the content in the subject is about war and killing which is the opposite so this is supposed to create a sense of irony now let's look at the first stanza so this poem begins with a hypothetical idea that the speaker and a man meet up in some old ancient inn because the title of this poem is The Man He Killed the readers can assume that the speaker is referring to the man he killed he's given a hypothetical idea and a hypothetical scenario to help the readers understand the humanity of both of them so both of these two soldiers add combat but maybe in another world if they'd met in this inn immediately the readers therefore can picture two men meeting up just by chance sitting down and having a drink together and Hardy refers to this as nippakin which is a type of container that held a certain amount of liquid in a pub this stanza makes it clear that the speaker wishes he had met this man under different circumstances the reader doesn't yet know what the circumstances were that led to the speaker shooting this man it doesn't sound like the speaker had any particular hateful feelings towards him it certainly doesn't sound like the speaker had any reason to kill the man in fact it sounds like he rather wishes he hadn't killed this individual now in the second stanza the word Bart jolts the reader out of the hypothetical and back to reality in real life we see this speaker as part of an infantry he stares a man in the face and shoots him and the man also shoots at the speaker however the speaker says that he and to quote killed him in his place so of course it's the speaker who survives this stanza reveals to reader that the speaker essentially had a near-death experience and don't forget when it comes to war these near-death experiences can of course lead to post-traumatic stress disorder however the speaker being so focused on the man he shot doesn't give any insight into what he felt being the man to survive this encounter and walk away the fact that he was face to face with this other man showed that either of them had an equal chance of death and it was the only chance that the speaker managed to walk away alive and the other man who's a complete stranger fell and died perhaps this near-death experience was what caused the speaker to really reflect about the other man and really think about how he could have met him in different circumstances now in the third stanza the first two lines reveal that the speaker doesn't really know why he shot the man he says and to quote from the poem I shot him dead because and then there's a pause the reader can imagine him thinking about this he doesn't know why he killed him he can't even come up with a reason however he finally does consider a reason he says he killed him because he was a foe then he asserts and to quote my foe of course he was that's clear enough now this line shows as if he's trying to justify what he did when he shot the man and it's clear that the speaker is quite uncomfortable with what he's done and is trying to reason with himself to convince himself that he's done the right thing shooting him he feels somewhat that he has a deeper reason even if he can't find one now in the fourth stanza at first the speaker tries to justify shooting this man then he begins to think about this man's life he supposes that this man just like him wasn't listed in the military offhand because it was out of work just like him the speaker thinks about the man as being somewhat like himself he as a speaker enlisted because he didn't have another job he didn't know what else to do he didn't really go to war with a desire to kill a man he was doing a job and now he's killed somebody someone who belongs to a family and he can't explain to himself why he's done it in the fifth stanza the speaker after trying to first justify shooting the man then thinks about the man's life and concludes that war is a very strange thing he calls it and to quote from the poem quaint and curious because in war you might shoot the very same man who in peacetime you would actually quite like and treat to a pint of liquor at the pub now the next poem in this collection is Cousin Kate but Christina Rossetti now a little bit about Rossetti herself her reputation is remarkably direct and she is a compelling poet who has written a whole load of different poetry and do try and refer back to one of our previous videos where we do look at Christina Rossetti in detail and look at her own collection of poems including the goblin market now Rossetti was a Victorian poet she was born in December 1830 to a lively and artistic family she is the daughter of an Italian scholar called Gabriel Rossetti and sister to the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti she was homeschooled and when her father died her mother became a governess and she later on in 1845 suffered a nervous collapse do bear in mind also with Rossetti that she was deeply religious and this is reflected in her writing she went on to write a lot of poetry by imitation and a lot of her work was really reflective of both her resolve not to get married she broke off an engagement but also her view of God and she examines a sacred and a secular now let's look at this poem in particular so when we look at the first stanza the poem begins with the description of a beautiful young maiden who spent her days out in the sun and air she was content to be with her cottage mates and she had no thought for a man and no desire for anything that she didn't already have she claimed she didn't even know that she was a beautiful girl until a great Lord found her she asks then to quit from the poem what did a great Lord find me out and praise my flaxen hair this of course is a rhetorical question and the tone of this question suggests that the affair with the great Lord didn't really end well she asks again and to quote what did a great Lord fill me out to fill my heart with care this rhetorical question shows that the great Lord made her feel something for him maybe she fell in love however maybe she then realises perhaps that she was just a mistress and something to just be cast aside once he was done now we learn that while she was once a young beautiful maiden without care in the world the expectations of this great Lord caused her to become a young maiden quite in love with him and someone especially of a spiritual status she likely lost a virginity to him and he was very much married and then he just cast her aside and perhaps she did this to try and gain up a one-up on the societal ladder but she realised she couldn't really climb socially now in the second stanza the speaker uses the word Lord to suggest that the great Lord didn't have pure intentions for her she says that when he took her into his home he and to quote rude her for joy thereof here readers can see that the great Lord did this for his own joy and this was at the word of the young maiden she says that he took her and to quote to lead a shameless, shameful life and to make her his plaything and his love the way the speaker describes her life as a mistress of this great Lord reveals that he just used her for his own sexual satisfaction without a thought at how this is going to alter her life and the rest of her days do bear in mind of course contextually when it comes to the Victorian era women were expected to be virgins before they married and if a woman wasn't a virgin she was seen as ineligible for marriage this was worse still for women who were of a lower social standing because marriage was really one of the ways in which they could protect themselves economically now of course this woman loses her virginity to this Lord therefore she's in many ways seen as used goods she then says and to quote from the poem he changed me like a glove and this similarly shows that she felt that she was nothing more than a toy on article floating to this man he used her while she was new and exciting and then he set her aside when she was done with him now in the third stanza there's a shift so that the speaker is not talking to the readers anymore but to her cousin Kate it's possible she's been talking to Kate all along when she calls her Lady Kate she makes it clear that her cousin has risen in social status to become a lady her cousin has chosen the right man who has maybe followed the right social conventions then married her and given her this title therefore the speaker reveals that her little cousin grew to be even more beautiful than she was herself and this great Lord saw her at her father's gate chose her and cast aside the speaker and married her instead now in the fourth stanza the speaker reveals that Kate was also and to quote good and pure so he bound her with his ring and of course there's irony here because the Lord this man who essentially took the speaker's virginity away then saw her as soiled by their sexual encounter so he wanted another pure woman hence he chose her cousin because Kate wouldn't allow this great Lord to take her to bed with that marriage he therefore married her thus she rose to the position of the lady and the speaker says to her and to quote the neighbors call you good and pure call me an outcast thing she then says that she sits in the dust and howls she in the imagery comes from the biblical book of Job and this description of sitting in the dust and howling is well known as the epitome of despair the speaker contrasts herself with Kate saying that while Kate sings she sits in gold and this is a stark contrast to the speaker who's howling in the dust but then the speaker asks a question to Kate she says which one of us has a tenderer heart this question implies the speaker believes herself to have more feeling in her heart than Kate and the last line of the stanza the speaker claims that Kate had and to quote the stronger wing and her previous question leads the readers with the picture of the speaker as the sweeter and the more tender of the two whilst Kate perhaps was the stronger now in the fifth stanza the speaker begins to draw a more distinct line between herself and her cousin she appeals to Kate exclaiming and to quote her cousin Kate my love was true your love was written in sand this reveals that the speaker did fill herself in love with the Lord though he used her and she compares the true love she felt for this Lord with the love of her cousin Kate who she claims that maybe doesn't have the same true and deep feelings for this man however ironically this man has chosen her the speaker then says if he had fooled not me but you if you stood where I stand he not have won me with his love in other words she's saying that Kate was fortunate enough to be able to watch what happened to her cousin before the Lord took interest in herself therefore Kate was clever in scheming and seducing him but not necessarily losing her virginity to this Lord before marriage hence why she won and became married now in the sixth stanza the speaker continues to contrast herself with Kate up until now she's shown that she's living a life of shame while Kate lives a life of glory Kate has done the right things socially that are expected of women at that time she's shown that Kate was stronger but the speaker's own love was more true for the Lord here she then says to Kate and to quote of a gift you've not got and seem not like to get she goes on to dismiss Kate's beautiful clothes and her wedding ring and she tells her cousin that she knows she must fret about what she doesn't have then she reveals what the gift this is the great Lord had given her a fair-haired son which she calls her shame and pride in one breath and of course it's oxymoron in other words this affair that the speaker had also led to a child and of course at the time contextually this was seen as an illegitimate child so lots of society saw this as really shameful however the speaker actually loves her son so even if the son was birthed out of shame actually the contrasting oxymoron shows that the speaker doesn't feel shame also when it comes to this description she mentions a coronet which is a simple crown often worn by lesser royalty the speaker reminds Kate that although she's been named a lady and has a rich and possibly well-known husband she herself will come to nothing without a son who she can bear for this Lord to inherit the wealth of his parents in other words this speaker has one up to Kate she has a son even if it's an illegitimate son remember at the time women couldn't inherit property so Kate now has pressure to bear a son to this Lord otherwise she will also be in a really precarious position even if she's the wife of course bear in mind that also during this time women were married away with dowry but they were not given inheritance as I've mentioned so it's not really clear whether Kate was unable to have children or whether she seemed to only have female girls whatever it is the speaker is implying that in some ways she's still one up to Kate even if she is the mother of the illegitimate son now let's move on to the next poem in this collection which is half cast by John Agard now John Agard was born on the 21st of June 1949 and he's a contemporary poet and he was born in Guyana he lives in southeast England but he's a first generation immigrant from Guyana and so a lot of his poetry reflects his views as an immigrant within England now the poem itself and the title is powerful the word half cast is actually a derogatory term and it's used for a person of mixed race descent do bear in mind of course that this term we no longer use because it's derogatory it's a really really racist term however John Agard who himself is of mixed race descent is using this now he's using this of course to prove a social point now one thing to bear in mind is that the speaker is beginning this poem by excusing himself for being half cast bear in mind that this term was actually used during the British Empire and during the period which you can associate with slavery to refer to children who the laws at the time prevented white people so white British and white colonialists from mixing with African people or people of African descent and of course half cast the word came from the idea that the children who would be produced from such a union were almost half breeds however of course this poem and its whole idea is to deride the racism inherent within this term the majority of the poem is filled with the speaker responding to being called half cast by a lot of racist people ensuring just how foolish it is to not only hold these racist views but even the term itself doesn't make any sense so of course bear in mind that the main point of this poem is to essentially deride these racist views of people of mixed race ethnicity and of course to also broadly question people who just generally hold racist views now when it comes to the first stanza it's important here to touch on a god's diction in other words his use of words because a lot of the language in this poem is written phonetically as it's pronounced now let's look at specifically the word cast which is associated with the word purity therefore it's easy to assume that half cast is a derogatory term for someone who is in some way impure and if this is the case then they're not of one single race now do bear in mind that this term was once accepted however of course today it's clearly insulting and it's considered racist and filled with ignorance and prejudice now of course a god does employ sarcasm in this first stanza seemingly apologizing for being of mixed race descent to people who are racist, people who are angry at his very existence he appears to apologize for that it's evident in the stanzas that follow at first that he's really not apologizing in fact he's lauding and celebrating the fact that his and to quote half cast after the first stanza a god writes the rest of his poem using Caribbean English dialect and as I've mentioned the rest of the poem is written phonetically and he speaks and he writes it as he would speak it as a Caribbean a god also uses very little punctuation there's a lot of enjambement throughout the poem lending a sense of urgency to the speaker's response he seems obviously very passionate about this topic and he feels a need to rush in order to fully defend himself as someone who by society or a racist society has been labeled as and to quote half cast now when it comes to the second and third stanzas they are filled with several metaphors a god compares being half cast to the black and white piano keys that make a symphony and Picasso himself, so the Picasso the painter mixing reds and greens to create his masterpieces he demands to know what the person asking him or calling him half cast really means by pointing to these things and saying that it's actually really impossible to have any form of purity not only in terms of race but in any form or sphere of life things are mixed and it's silly and very foolish to see this as something terrible in fact it adds more colour and beauty to the world now a god's blatant disregard for punctuation and capitalisation is interesting because he separates each example he gives without a question mark but rather a slash creating an interesting division between each scenario again these add to the confrontational and really angry tone of the poem of course the speaker is really angry at this racist person who presumably has addressed him as half cast and is asking them these questions a god also of course uses repetition throughout constantly asking the person who he's speaking to explain himself what you mean when you say half cast also a god compares the English weather to being half cast saying the mix of the sun and clouds in the sky is always present in England which of course is also meant to be somewhat humorous his anger shows this example using the word spiteful when discussing how the clouds seem not to want the sun to be visible he then uses a phonetic Caribbean word a ras which shows which is also an expletive in other words it's a swear word and it shows of course how angry he is now this phrase is a creole term that essentially translates to my arse and it's something that someone says when they're really angry and dismissing somebody else's argument of viewpoint also of course he alludes to Tchaikovsky who's a famous Russian composer and he's asking did he if he uses a piano and mixes the black and the white keys create half cast symphonies just because of this and does this therefore mean that his work isn't a masterpiece and of course this is a rhetorical question and we know that Tchaikovsky people love a lot of his classical music because it is masterpiece and again the whole idea and the whole point is to show that actually there's so much richer life and colour when you mix different colours together and when there's more racial harmony now the third stands as the examples of half cast seas and the tone becomes increasingly angry and accusatory the speaker then takes an input glance at himself telling the reader that because he's only half he can only listen with half of his air offer half of a hand when someone needs help and dream with only one eye half closed and it's difficult to separate the stands line by line since there's so many ideas strung together now on the final six lines of the poem a god says he's only half of a human being who costs only half of a shadow but the other person who he's addressing can come back tomorrow with his whole mind all of his eyes is and his mind open and maybe understand his perspective of someone who is an ethnic minority and perhaps in this way the person who's calling him half cast can realise that it is they who are ignorant now the fourth stanza is a continuation of the third and a god is telling the person who he's addressing to come back with a whole mind and perhaps learn more of his story now on the next poem is Exposure by Wilfred Owen now contextually speaking do bear in mind that Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 which is towards the end of the Victorian era and bear in mind that he himself served as a soldier in the first world war indeed he died during this first world war also bear in mind that a lot of his poetry which was written surrounding the war was actually fairly critical of the first world war now when it comes to the poem itself, Exposure the beauty of his poetry lies in the simplicity of its words in the first stanza we find that the speaker doesn't really tangle himself up in words that show what he means we get the setting of a really bleak French landscape without delay and the surroundings then brought to life by using adjunct verbs the poem states the use of this language shows that the soldiers are truly alone in a really hostile environment and of course remember that this poem is contextually referring to the first world war and if you want to be more specific you can also refer to battles such as the battle of Dunkirk during this war however it's really interesting that the enemy in this war is nature itself nature appears to have turned against them and is cutting at them and essentially also killing them so the enemy within this poem which is interesting is nature, the winter which is killing lots of soldiers and do bear in mind again contextually that a lot of soldiers in the first world war actually died due to the terrible conditions that they lived in rather than from enemy fire now in the second stanza Owen introduces the war it's always present even when it's not visible the phrase twitching agonies although simple helps to nudge the reader into the poem it also shows the distant prevalence of war although it's not immediately there it's constantly felt like a dull rumour once more we sense the confusion of the soldiers who are asking the rhetorical question what are we doing here it's no secret that this war was not meant to last as long as it did in other words the first world war was meant to be a very short war what this is doing is showing just how protracted it is and these soldiers are really losing faith in the war now in the third stanza this awful continuation of war seems to just be a cycle that's never ending to quote from the poem we only know war lasts, rain soaks and clouds sag stormy war sin is an inevitable fact of life a piece of nature that the soldiers have now taken to be as accurate as possible also it seems that within this war there's another greater war between the men and nature as dawn is massing its melancholy army and it's attacking so nature here is personified as another enemy and it's attacking and killing these soldiers now in the fourth stanza nature again is continued to be depicted as an attacking force the bullets are and to quote less deadly than the air that shudders blackwood snow and this is powerful because it's actually showing that nature is even worse on the men than bullets themselves some bullets from enemies Owen therefore gives the impression that the soldiers have been lost in a drifting desolate land where everything is attacking them including nature itself this is a really interesting perspective of nature as being the enemy now in the fifth stanza note the misery inherent the soldiers appear to be beaten not only by the Germans but by the weather and the awful crushing effect it has left them unable to fight and essentially they're in this shell hole of misery and in some ways waiting for death they've reached a point of despair which is so low that they believe that they're going to be swallowed up by nature and so we're given this really sad and singular image of these soldiers horrible situation of course bear in mind that Owen is making a wider point showing the horrific conditions that soldiers during the first world war had to endure now in the sixth stanza even in peace there's still exhaustion to quote from the poem the soldiers slowly drag our ghosts home it's powerful because they're depicted as ghosts and even in times of peace they are maybe half the men they used to be also essentially Owen states and to quote from the poem shutters and doors all closed and this shows the distance between the soldier and the civilian the soldiers can't really envisage anymore a state of peace and what this could bring to mind is of course post-traumatic stress disorder for soldiers who've returned they can't quite relate to civilians who don't understand entirely what life is like at war and how difficult life can be now when it comes to the seventh and eighth stanzas despair reaches a final low point this is where the action should happen and it must happen however nothing does the soldiers are dying alone on a field they're frozen to death and they're found by the members of the army that bury the dead these members keep on coming across more bodies on the field and it seems that the soldiers have died this miserable and far away death and they're in pain and intriguingly enough what's caused these deaths is nature and still and to quote but nothing happens and of course this serves an idea that these things cannot be changed now but also war is not really happening however people are dying needlessly now the next poem in this collection is the charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson so according to T.S. Eliot he saw Alfred Lord Tennyson as and to quote from T.S. Eliot himself the finest ear of any English poet since Milton now Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote about the Crimea war in the charge of the Light Brigade and he in many ways crystallized the memory of this particular war bear in mind he was a Victorian writer who was born in 1809 as an impolionic courageous wars raged in Europe and he was born at a time of great change and he was also a very successful poet but also from the upper class elite now in 1850 he published a series of poems including this and he was also someone who had a keen interest on the different wars that happened and especially the Crimean War so now of course this poem itself if you look at it is a depiction of the men who died a battle during the war in Crimea this is a war that took place in the 1800s between Britain and the Russians now in the first stands of the speaker reveals a subject of the poem which are the 600 men who rode to the deaths he claimed that they were marching straight into the valley of death the mention of the valley of death is a biblical reference to a book of Psalms verse 23 this of course could also offer hope because within this verse in the bible it states now the speaker uses this to suggest that the men who marched into the deaths were still being followed by God and however they are still referring to the places of valley of death which suggest that of course these men know that they will be dying therefore they are taking comfort in the fact that they will meet God after the deaths now in this second stanza the speaker reveals the thoughts of the soldiers as they march on they then know that someone had made a mistake which will cost them their lives they press on anyway bear in mind that this poem is based on the Crimean War but it's based on a specific episode within the Crimean War where acting on wrong orders there's a charge of around 600 men who go to a far more larger and better prepared Russian army and because of these mistaken orders the soldiers die however what this second stanza is showing is that even if these men at one point as they're charging realize that they will probably die and they've acted on false information they still do so quite very valiantly and they see it as a duty to follow the commands that they've been asked to do now in the third stanza there's an attestiment to the boldness that these men rode and of course to quote from the poem the road into the mouth of hell which is also hyperbole now we get the sense that there was perhaps a speaker who is there to see it all the men knew that they were trapped there were cannons on all sides of them however they still rode into the battle and the speaker says that they rode well we as readers can therefore imagine these brave men who are going to their certain deaths also is supposed to show the pride that they have in the country which is Britain and the pride that they have to die for their country in battle now when it comes to the fourth stanza there's a revelation that while this army of 600 charged the deaths the rest of the world wondered why they were ordered into that death trap in other words of course this is meant to criticize the people that gave the marching orders the powers that be the only people not wondering interestingly are the soldiers themselves were simply following orders and doing their duty even if they are going to die and at the end of the stanza the speaker reveals that some did come out alive these were the ones who and to quote road back however there's a clarification that it's not the 600 who returned showing that of course very few made it out alive and historically speaking 200 out of the men 247 of them returned home to battle out of 600 men now the fifth stanza the speaker states that there were cannons on all sides of the men and both horse and hero fell attesting to their bravery and showing that they fought so well and of course the speaker finds it miraculous that there were still men who survived this horrendous battle in the sixth stanza the speaker calls to honor the 600 men who marched with the light brigade in the battle of Baclava and he asks a retarical question when can the glory fade that there will be forever remembered for the honor in marching so bravely into the valley of death so even if the British fighters did not win this particular war they are still immortalized because the speaker says that they did the duty as all soldiers should now the next poem in this collection is Catherine by Gillian Clark so Gillian Clark is a contemporary poet and she was born in Cardiff and she lives in Ceredigion her work has been on the GCSE syllabus which you're currently studying and her books have also been published by Faber now when comes to this poem itself Catherine displays the love and tour more in the parent-child relationship the second poem centers around a conflict that seems to have escalated into a fury rather quickly through Clark's use of imagery the speaker is able to convey feelings of love and affection along with frustration of dealing with a conflict that inevitably arises between a parent and child at the start of the poem the speaker reveals that the person to whom she speaks to is a child but she doesn't reveal her position immediately because the author is female it's easy to assume that the speaker is a mother and for simplicity's sake this analysis will assume just as much however the gender of the child in the poem isn't really stated but however it's implied and based on the voice of the speaker and the short description of a child it's most probably a mother and daughter and the conflict itself remains unresolved by the end of the poem but both mother and daughter are apparently changed now in the first stanza the opening creates a setting and imagery for the rest of it the reader can picture a child licking longingly out of a window watching the traffic lights come and change as cars drive the speaker describes a room as hot and white which allows the reader to feel the intensity that the speaker feels as she stands there watching the child look out of the window the speaker then describes that this first incident was the first fierce confrontation and the use of the word fierce reveals the impact that this conflict had on the speaker as well as the child the speaker uses the game of the tug of war to provide an analogy for the conflict between herself and the child the rope is described as red to represent the love that exists between the two of them and though they both poured on each end of the rope as tightly as they could they were still inevitably connected but this rope of love which couldn't be severed utilizes the love and devotion that remains between mother and child the speaker then moves into a different description of the relationship between the two she describes a room as a blank canvas which was empty and white before the child was born but now it's full of memories ranging from coloured walls to paintings, toys and other things the speaker then uses the word disinfected to reveal the reality of this confrontation she remembers all the things she's disinfected over the years in order to keep the child healthy and describes the way she coloured over all the walls of the walls and this parallels the way in which a child can colour the walls when they're young now the mother has coloured the walls of the child just as the child colouring on the wall could frustrate her parents the mother's words seem to be really frustrating to the child through describing the pictures she draws with her words she describes the struggle between herself and the child explaining that there were each fighting and to quote to become separate she also says and to quote from the poem we want, we shout it to be two to be ourselves now this quote reveals our speaker understands that her child is a separate being with different feelings and ideas and an identity however it's still clear that whatever the mother and child are fighting over it's worth the fight to the mother and even if she's able to recognise her child's desire to be her own person she still continues to hold on to her end of the rope fighting this fight that has led to such frustration and anger between them now in the second stanza the speaker reveals that she doesn't feel as though either of them have won however they were both changed from it now it seems the dynamic of the mother-child relationship has shifted when the two encountered this conflict and the speaker feels that they've stuck in a fish tank which was so clouded of the feelings that neither one could see clearly and it's unclear whether this anthology of the fish tank suggests the presence of another person or whether the speaker just simply feels suddenly exposed the speaker feels as if they've both been changed yet she says in the poem I'm still fighting you off for the first time in this poem it seems that this conflict is specifically between mother and daughter there's also the description of the long round hair and the rosy defiant glare which suggests feminine features now the defiant glare is what the speaker describes as bringing up from the heart's ball that old rope tightening about my life this is the perfect way to describe the ties between her mother and daughter and there's a rope that comes directly from the mother's heart and her daughter's glare seems to pull at this rope and the speaker feels it to tighten around her life now when it comes to mother-daughter relationship they're always both the speaker's eloquently described the way this conflict has pulled at the rope of her heart and how she's unable to let go of it no matter how much it hurts and now at the end of the poem the speaker reveals a reason for this conflict the daughter has asked to skate and to quote in the dark for one more hour the last few lines of this poem revealed the intensity of parenting although it seems like a little conflict there's clearly been quite an incredible amount of pain and frustration that's occurred over whether or not the daughter could skate for another hour this also reveals the reason the mother couldn't let go of this rope at the beginning of the poem the mother describes the traffic outside and although the daughter was unable to acknowledge the danger of skating in the dark the mother could see through this danger clearly she left the daughter far too much to let go of the rope and to let her have this extra time and she faces the pain of the daughter's defiant glare she stands her ground because as her mother it's her job to protect her from the imminent danger of skating in the dark near heavy traffic and it's interesting that this stanza begins with the speaker claiming that neither of them won however it appears that the doctor wasn't allowed to skate in the dark so clearly it's the speaker who's won the argument however the mother feels that this is really rather a hollow victory instead she feels that both have been changed and she's really lost something in the process and it's for this reason that they both seem lost by the end of the poem the reader concedes the importance of the mother-daughter relationship as well as the uniqueness as well as the necessity for conflict the mother wouldn't relent because she wouldn't allow her daughter to place herself in harm's way love for her daughter is too great for her to relent and the daughter herself wouldn't relent because she's unable to see the danger she could be in and she just badly wanted to skate for another hour this poem allows us as readers to understand the really intense dynamics in parent-child relationships and the different and difficult roles that both of them have to play now, early in the poem the speaker revealed her acknowledgement that her daughter was being a separate person or in other words trying to assert her own separate identity she clearly had her own will and desires and those desires didn't always comply with her mother's and now as a mother she understands this fully and chooses in this instance not to let go of the argument however she also realises that ultimately she will have to let her daughter develop her own separate identity now let's move on to the next moment of this collection which is wall photographer by Carol Satyamutri now the poet herself is a poet and sociologist and she's a contemporary poet and she grew up in Kent and has lived in North America, Singapore and Uganda and her poetry as always has been awarded a number of prizes she herself is also an experienced performer and an active participant in the contemporary poetry world through being competition and judge and workshop tutor now in the poem itself wall photographer this poem centers around the tragic comparing poverty to leisure now the author herself or the poet herself is known for facing pain and suffering head on in her works of poetry now the words of this poem center around modern warfare and explicitly reveal the minor detail the effects of wall have on people's lives now in the first stanza the speaker uses intense imagery to reveal what a picture of wall can do to the viewer upon first glance the picture is safely inside a frame and to most viewers the photo is of a different place and perhaps even a different time thus one isn't entirely forced to enter the photo the speaker also reveals that as a person of support for photograph they can think outside the frame of the photo and believe that and to quote people eat sleep love normally but life is different for the photographer herself she must and to quote seek out the tragic and thus live in it for the one who sees the reality of wall firsthand as a wall photographer life outside of wall is hard to imagine one might even forget that it exists and the speaker mentions the edges of the photo again implying that there and to quote firmness of the edges can help a person live outside the tragedy of wall keeping the reality safely within the borders of the picture however there are other pictures that lift the heart and most people tend to look at these pictures and convince themselves that this is how things are the photographer herself however knows that these photos are only a snapshot in time and never fully encompass the way things are at any time and place now in the second stanza the speaker records a picture she took in Ascot which is a very well to do a place where people go to watch horses and these tend to be very well to do people now the picture was clearly of rich and fairly privileged girls in England and she describes them as wearing silk and giggling in the grass as a sip champagne this is clearly a group of girls who she sees representing happiness and perhaps some ignorance of tragedies going on in the world around them and the purpose of this stanza is to reinforce what the speaker said in the previous stanza concerning viewers ability to believe in the truthfulness of the happy photos rather than the tragic ones now the imagery provided here of course are a contrast to the image the speaker presents in the rest of the poem allowing readers to understand the irony of the fact that some people get to enjoy wealth whilst others suffer tragedy now in the third stanza the speaker drives point her home or rather her point home providing a specific instance and revealing that it happened instantly she remembers into quote following a small girl as she was staggering down some devastated streets now we're taking back to a place of war the description of the small child allows the reader to enter into this war like scene and feel as though they're there with a photographer following the small girl she describes the way her hip thrust out under a baby's weight and reveals that the small girl was not only so weak but she was staggering and she walked down a street that could only be described as devastated and on top of that she had to look after a baby even if she was only her child herself the photographer looks at this girl and takes a picture just as the girl turns to look at her and this subtle description of this act of taking the picture allows the readers to enter into this photographer's reality she really can't do much to help the child she's simply there just to report and take pictures of this very different life the readers then understand that there's so much more to the realities happening behind the pictures that they see they also only see a photo of an impoverished child caring for the baby but they don't know how it feels to see that child first hand and know that the child has seen you in this suffering they furthermore don't know how it's like to be in the shoes of that child now in the fourth stands that the speaker continues to describe the small child who held the baby the fact that the bomb is described as and to quote the first bomb of the morning is interesting as it suggests that there have been numerous bombs prior to this one and many more bombs will follow this poem becomes all the more shocking however when the child drops the baby she's carrying and flees for her own life with a scream which seemed too loud from the mouth from which it came this of course shows how her innocence is destroyed and it reflects the contrast between this stanza and the second stanza suggesting that when it comes down to it human nature by instinct will cause one to take care of themselves first and foremost and it offers more insight into the reason that some enjoy lavish riches whilst others starve now in the fifth stands of the photographer reveals the way pictures can be deceiving when she first saw the child first hand and looked into her eyes heard her scream and watch her run drop in the baby the picture she took didn't capture this entire story in the picture it looked almost as if the child was maybe smiling and the caption reveals that the photographer played a role in this deception to the public whether she wrote the caption herself or simply allowed her to be published she as a photographer knows the realities of life with this young child were not truthfully reflected in the photo the caption said that even in hell the human spirit triumphs over all this gives the readers a false idea that the child is happy and is maybe somehow going to overcome this when really this is not going to be the case and this allows readers to believe that even though the war is going on and people are starving people might still even be happy with this and the photographer knows this is patently untrue however this is apparently what the public want to hear therefore this is what is published along with the photograph the last three lines however reveal that the photographer is aware of the deception of her photos and wants to proclaim the truth she explains that into quote hell doesn't have specific boundaries at the edges of the photo rather these boundaries are arbitrary as a blood stain on a wall this ending reveals that pain and suffering is themselves are arbitrary and senseless and it's not fair that some people get to bathe and drink champagne and go to watch horse races in Ascot whilst others scream and run in terror while the bombs go off around them which reveals of course injustice that goes on in a world which is so small hence so unfair but also this shows just how deeply divided one part of the world is which experiences injustice whether the other side of the world which experiences lots of wealth so let's look at Belfast Confetti by Karen Carson now Carson is a contemporary poet who was born in a 1948 he's not only a poet but an amazing novelist who is cherished by almost all those who love literature born and brought up in Belfast Northern Ireland he writes both poetry and prose which is often heavily influenced by his Irish roots now this poem uses past tense to describe the violence against the Catholic crowd in the place Carson uses the same tense to portray different effects of being in the middle of conflict the poet also uses present tense to portray a live scene of what he went through during a time he witnessed violence and of course do you remember contextually that Carson himself grew up in Northern Ireland which is a site of several conflicts with regards to the IRA and so of course this is highly influencing this poem now the speaker uses this present tense to describe this experience in the aftermath of the riot the poet has therefore used first-person narrative style to describe his feelings in the most efficient way and this is a free verse poem now this poem is like watching a live scene after a riot between the shipyard workers who are the Protestants and the Catholics exclamation marks depict the screaming voices of people who being ruthlessly killed during this riots we can hear and to quote from the poem Nuts, bolts, nails, car keys which described the scrap metals used as weapons by the Protestants as to risk depicts the sparkles that were born due to the explosion during the fight and we get lots of language such as the words starting to depict how petrified the person is who's watching all of these things happen and how they haunt his memories forever now the poet states that it's impossible for him to find an escape during this riot because every road has a and to quote dead end again the use of the dead end depicts dead bodies lying at different places roadblocks and these dead bodies have blocked his way due to which he can't find a way to escape the poet then asks why can't I escape which depicts the helplessness and even though he wishes to leave and he knows that he's survived he's unable to get rid of this helplessness feeling and being unable to help those lives in this riot that he's witnessed furthermore this poem shows this person who's witnessing the death of several people right before his eyes due to which he just can't forget these violent memories and we can argue that he is experiencing post traumatic stress disorder also the quote a fuselad of question marks depicts the questions raised by the innocent eyes of the Catholics who were slaughtered by merciless nationalist groups during this riot now let's move on to the next poem which is the class game by Mark Casey now Mark Mary Casey rather was born in Hampshire in 1915 and died in Dorset at midnight in 1980 she published two collections from her poems and she has also published different books which contain the correspondence between Mary and her husband Gerald Casey in this book specifically is called Night Horizons now when it comes to the poem itself this fascinating poem shows the speaker challenging her audience to ponder the game they're playing this game she refers to as a class game and the class game is a game in which people look at a person and try to guess what social class they're from based on their parents they try to guess where they may live how they talk and so on and the speaker refers to it as a game with heavy sarcasm in her voice because she knows it's not really a game at all rather it's the harsh judgement that really bases people use to critique others and this ironic reference as a way of thinking as a game allows readers to see how truly harmful this ignorance and also this prejudice really is now when we look at lines one to five the speaker begins with the challenging tone of voice and readers can immediately sense her intent to call out certain people and challenge the way of thinking she asks and to quote from the poem how can you tell what class I'm from and then she describes some specifics about her attire and she believes others are using this to guess her social class she explains that she can and to quote which reveals her social status to others she also explains that she wears a hat rather than a scarf and her clothes are second hand now in line sixty eleven the speaker continues to challenge her audience asking them why they wince when they hear her say certain things for example she says rather than the more proper way of saying by mommy dear the speaker clearly conveys why it matters how she says goodbye to her mother and why it should make some people cringe to hear it so she calls them out asking them why they wince when she speaks she asks again and to quote how can you tell what class I'm from and then continues to guess that perhaps they saw where she lives in a home she describes a corpy and this word corpy is an old term used by those who lived in Liverpool which is in the northern part of England to describe what's known as a council house which is an inexpensive home that could be afforded by the working class and usually partly funded by the government the speaker challenges her audience to really think about what they know about the class she comes from she's not denying that she talks in a certain way dresses in second hand clothes and lives in a cheap government funded home her tone does not deny any of these things however it does challenge the heroes to think about why they cringe when they see evidence of this social class now in lines twelve to fifteen the speaker points out things about her that make her close to social class stand out she asks the heroes if you know her social class because she happened to drop an unemployment card her distinctly asking whether she dropped in on the patio reveals that she doesn't have a patio herself just a yard again she asks the people that are listening how they can tell what class she's from and she feels that her social class is so obvious to pass her by that she may as well have a label on her head and another on her bum her tone hair begins to reveal the questions she's really trying to ask her listeners she knows her speech and dress reveal her social class but she questions why these small differences in appearance make others see her so vastly differently in lines sixteen to nineteen the speaker reiterates a few points she's already made she questions an onlooker asking if he or she knows her social class because of the oil stains on her hand she points out that her hands are not into quote soft lily white with perfume and oil like the rich women surrounding her she questions an audience whether they've yet guessed her social class based on this or if it's the way she drinks her tea and if it's because she said toilet instead of the bog either way it's clear the speaker knows her social class is obvious and is only questioning to people to ask why the cringe and judge her as a result of a place in society in lines twenty twenty six the speaker finally comes right out and says what she's been implying along her social class shouldn't really concern others it's none of their business and then she asks blatantly why do you care what class I'm from then in a critical tone of voice she asks into quote does it stick in your gullet like a sour plum with this question the reader can imagine the people to whom she's addressing and they look as though they've just eaten something sour and the glares make it clear that they have a lot of disdain for the speaker though it shouldn't really matter to them what social class she's from then the speaker says well mate indicating she's about to tell her spectator something important she declares that her mother is a cleaner her brother is a doc worker and she declares that she will use slang such as and words such as wet nally and belly and she adamantly declares into quote I'm proud of the class that I come from the imagery throughout this poem serves to contrast two different lifestyles that existed in Liverpool there was a working class in the wealthy classes within this city and the speaker effectively contrasts both pointing out that the only difference between these two kinds of people are details as small as certain words used clothing worn and places dwelled in as well as appearance of their hands these are all outward details and have nothing to do with the inwards of the person and for this reason the speaker questions her critics and these questions become all the more powerful as the poem progresses all her questions are rhetorical and the cause of reader to stop and ponder what really makes one person different from another this question addresses those who are in the wealthy classes those who cringe when she speaks and slang and cast a critical eye on her second hand clothing the type of people she addresses clearly view themselves as different and in many ways superior from her in terms of her working class background however her questions also reveal that the only differences between the two classes are outward appearance and material possession thus the class game is irrelevant it's a game that shouldn't really be played and the question make these onlookers who wins at her appear shallow and thoughtless themselves and the goal throughout the poem is to point out the foolishness of this class game in the end however she doesn't seem to care for what other people think and she's proud to be part of the working class she's proud her mother has worked hard and taught her the value of hard work as well as her brother and she's proud of everything about where she's from and her final question to critics which is why do you care what class I'm from shows that in many ways they are the ones who are shallow and thoughtless and she wants this question to resound in the minds of readers now the next poem in this collection is poppies by Jane Weir so Jane Weir was born in 1963 and she spent her time growing up in Italy and England and she's a mother of two sons neither of whom have actually been to war so it's a fair assumption that she's not the mother described in the poppies in this poem written during a time when British soldiers however were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan so these are two modern wars Carolyn Duffy the poet laureate also asked a number of writers to create works to frame this ongoing war and of course among these is poppies by Jane Weir which addresses this and in many ways is a commemoration and we can argue that she drew her inspiration from being a mother and above all the sense of grief that's held in the poem for someone who's lost the child at war now her poetry displays an array of social, historical and political preoccupations having themes which diversely range in terms of scenarios, situations and voices and the principle motive is language itself, its mutability in representing both the abstract as well as the real now the form of this poem and the synthetic aspect of this poem are mixed with the traditional and it seems that there's both some sense of withering humour as well as a striking sense of pathos however there's still a profound ambivalence within this poem now in the first stanza we can argue that this poem is without adherence to any kind of syllable count or rhyme it's written quite freely and the narrator introduces someone who said goodbye to someone who's presumably left the war presumably also their child poppies takes place three days before Armistice Sunday to quit from the poem this in England at least is more commonly known as Remembrance Day and this was an armistice as a formal agreement for a ceasefire this is symbolic of something the narrator's daily wishing for and enter hostilities that threaten those who fight in the war including the person the pal the pinned a poppy to and again we can presume that this is their child who the pinned a poppy to before he left for war now in the second and third stanzas the narrator is simply speaking to the memory of who we learn is his son or probably his son and the narrator reveals her desire to take them in her arms and run her hands through his hair and rob noses together like she did when he was a younger boy ultimately she resists these impulses and walks beside him to the front door as he leaves and there's no moment for goodbye but rather the simple opening of the door and then he's gone now the quote and the word intoxication suggests that he's really eager to go to war whilst his mother of course is watching and she's feeling really sad interestingly we can see that this is something he as a soldier looks forward to without really thinking about it or understanding the atrocity and the gravity of the situation he's walking into when he does go to war now after an undisclosed amount of time goes by the narrator notices that there's a dove flying through town and with no explanation she follows it even though it's really cold outside and this is because remember in stay when we think about the timing as in early November and this is a time in England at least when it's really cold she then finds herself outside the walls of a local church and there's a moment of character development here for the narrator she follows the bird on a whim perhaps because doves often symbolise peace but also because there's nothing else to do once her son is gone now in the fourth stands at the narrator follows the bird to the top of the hill where there's a war memorial the description of the dove flying away suggests its purpose is to lead the mother to that memorial and it suggests that the mother is reliving the memory of her son leaving because it's the last memory she may ever have of him perhaps we learned that he died in the war and the inscription being traced as the name of her son she tries to recall him as a young child freely playing in the playgrounds with the innocence and peace of that time however this memory is rewarded only with silence it's not expressly stated her son is dead but the theme of the poem and the noticeable extension of the saddened atmosphere make it a suggestion that perhaps her son did die and this poem is about grief and loss now the next poem in this collection is No Problem by Benjamin Zephaniah Benjamin Zephaniah was born and raised in Birmingham, England and he finished full-time education at the age of 13 his poetry is strongly influenced by music and poetry of Jamaica which is where he originally comes from and what he calls street politics now a lot of his work also is influenced in the early 80s where there were a lot of demonstrations and a lot of youth gatherings outside of police stations but also a lot of radical protests and a lot of his work focuses in on that now when you look at the poem itself no problem it's divided into two verses of short lines without any particular adherence to a rhyme pattern the primary poetic device being used in the line breaks that isolate each other is these breaks and they make sure that the reader is feeling the full impact of each line now the most striking thing about Zephaniah's work is his use of voice which he imbues throughout the poem though intentionally sparing the words phonetically rather than in a strict correct way much like John A. God in half cast now the spelling of each word emphasises an accent typical in this case of the African continent which makes sense in accordance with the message that the work attempts to convey importantly none of the changes in spelling inhibit the piece from conveying the meaning properly but they add a new dimension to the poem the first word in the poem is I followed by words that convey an accent foreign to the readership right away the readers inform that this is somebody else's story we're told and in the one line this person is maybe we learn that there might be an immigrant and wonder why we should care about what they have to say however this is all in the voice now throughout the first verse the line is repeated several times I am not the problem and each time to view a different dimension of the actual problem the speaker declares the first time but I am treated as though I were to quit from the poem now the mention of taunts and slurs in the first few lines is a smart choice by the poet because an early reading of this and the context of the speaker shows that perhaps this person is an immigrant who is being victimised being seen as a problem now there's no reason to assume or believe they deserve any kind of victimisation so the effect of stating I am not the problem but I'm treated as if I were is that the reader feels that this speaker who presumably is an immigrant is facing a gross injustice and this really imbues the poem with a sense and edge which is quite emotional now the next few lines in the opening poem reference a stereotype that pushes people of colour away from academia and towards athleticism so one thing that Zephaniah is trying to reference is this stereotype that a lot of people of colour particularly black people are seen as only successful as entertainers of some sort but they're not necessarily always associated with the academic world now in this stanza the speaker is described as being born an academic and branded by society and athlete and of course referring back to the societal stereotype the rest of the verse concludes similarly with the narrator being constantly misunderstood there are a person who could tell you about Timbuktu but all anyone seems to care about is the dancing from the region they're trying to convey here that the really complex individual a unique and inspiring person but the simplicity of popular stereotypes that surround them overshadows this entirely now the last verse opens with an interesting expression just for the record that these conditions might affect the speaker as he bears his ages it's as though the opinions and scorn from others is actually debilitating for the speaker and they compare it with age related diseases and despite this they declare that they've got no grudges or anger towards anyone and they point out that they actually have a number of really good friends of the same world that these stereotypes abuse them in now the second verse is about putting a complete picture that the commentators are quoted in the first verse get wrong the second verse is also about giving these commentators who have all of these stereotypes about the immigrant some clarity about them the narrator speaks of not being the problem and the repetition implies anger to some understandably enough many people become bitter and unhappy about being blamed for so much for so long and also being put in the box however the image painted by this poem is someone with a great deal of acceptance for their world both are good and bad within it it's an interesting choice on the poet's part to use a voice that conveys the accent most associated with stereotypes being fought in the poem by doing this the poet is creating a conflicting view by perpetuating one element of the stereotype which is an accent but also dispelling the rest of the stereotypes and this is a stylistic choice related to the pride reference in the second verse and to quote mother country get it right the speaker seems proud of the accent in their country and they don't want to be judged for that pride now let's move on to what were they like by Denise Levatov now Denise Levatov is a well-recognized poet and writer who combines her own personal experience with historical facts through her poetic skills she's able to build up a new poetic vision and her work really influenced Charles Olson's essay which was published in 1950 and in which the entire focus of his work remains on the possibilities of her work however just as she mediates or translates her personal experience into words it also shows her great poetic skills and it's only by virtue of her poetry that readers can familiarize themselves with the poet and the speaker's experience and obtain a different level of understanding now when it comes to the poem itself what were they like this is about the after effects of war and what happens when one culture conflicts with another culture the poem specifically protests the damage done by the American military to the people of Vietnam during the Vietnam War between the two countries in the 60s and 70s this poem has a really unique structure it's split into two verses and the reasons for structuring the poem like this are given in the annotations that follow do the people of Vietnam use lanterns of stone do they hold ceremonies to reverence the opening of buds now in this poem Levatov is employing this very much public events of the Vietnam War as the canvas in which she sketches a lyrical song and creating sarcastic images which are very thought provoking now when we look at the first stanza the poem opens with a series of questions about the past the questions appear to suggest an ancient religious civilization grounded in old skills and appreciation of nature the questions continue like a catechism and answers seem to be required the material seems almost primitive and traditional and when the poet says, had they an epic they seem to be referring to the ancient mythical civilization possibly Greeks and the two great Odyssey's such as Odyssey and Iliad now in this first part of the poem there's a lot of sarcastic questions and this is perhaps meant as an attack and those who don't understand the value of lives of human beings and through these questions the poet really wants to make readers think about and then look for answers through words like electricity and stones the speaker wants to tell us that people of Vietnam passed perhaps a very simple and ordinary life however due to the attack of the American army on the country the country was separated from more advanced nations such as America and the UK and the poet wants to really create sympathy within us as readers for the Vietnamese who faced this horrendous situation and realize that their simplistic way of life was really destroyed during this war also through the imagery of lanterns of stone the poet combines two interestingly incompatible things this combination of words provokes readers to consider a diverse number of associations which set the mind of motion and lead them to different understandings of events now where in the first stanza the speaker the questioner asks lots of questions in the second stanza there's someone who gives answers to the questions as we go through the verses it becomes clear the first speaker is a man perhaps and the second might know what happened the very first word in the second stanza which is sir is used in a sarcastic tone this catechism provides numbered answers which relate to the questions in the poem moreover beginning with the formal term sir hints that the person answering the question has been quite respectful like a soldier answering the commander however this might be false respect the speaker tells all those gleeful, joyful nature loving people are now dead so these people who were in Vietnam prior to the war who really lead very simplistic lives have been killed by the war and their light hearts have been turned to stone which means that the speaker has given lots of answers to the first verse of the stanza which asked to the people of Vietnam use lanterns of stones the speaker also shows that before the war these people used to be happier now there's nobody left to answer almost all of them have been turned to stone in other words they've been killed now in the third stanza answering questions of the speaker the respondent of the poem says that there was a time when peaceful clouds used to reflect on the paddy fields and the water buffalo used to step along terraces this person gives a very long answer to the question by describing what and how the culture of Vietnam was before the war they say that the Vietnamese used to live a really simple life that was stable and calm and the paddy fields waterlogged however they remained rich with the rice however the war has now destroyed all of this and there's only screams and horror and tears being shed all around the bombs have smashed the mirrors and as these bombs are falling and this destruction was happening many Vietnamese people didn't have time even to sing what they could do was just scream and run to save their lives though not everything has vanished there seems to be an echo of this speech when the speaker asks did they distinguish between speech and singing and the respondent answers there is an echo yet of this speech which was like a song it's also reported that the Vietnamese singing resembles flights of moths and moonlight and the last three verses the poem again shows an image of a gentle and peaceful nation and readers are provided with really contrasting images of ruin after war the poet employs a simile likening the flight of moths with the voices of people singing and the speaker says that today Vietnam is silent because there's no one to sing everybody is dead and all the legacies and songs are now gone along with the dead people and the last sentence of the poem shifts into the present tense it's a simple statement but this contributes to the power of point many people are dead a culture has been destroyed and the strong image that suggests the beauty and delicateness of the Vietnamese culture and the sound of their music has now been destroyed so that's all if you found this summary useful do consider giving a thumbs up to this video and subscribing to our channel for educational content in addition, make sure you visit our website which is www.firstratecheaters.com there you will find useful revision materials, worksheets and information that you can find helpful when studying both this anthology and indeed other books and literature when it comes to passing your coursework or exams we hope you enjoyed this and thank you so much for listening