Poppies
By Jane Weir
What do you think when you see this particular
flower? What do you already know about what
this flower stands for?
What could the colour red symbolise?
How would you feel…
• If someone you loved was leaving to go and
fight in a war?
Context
• Armistice day, when people remember
those who have died fighting for their
countries, is 11th November every year
• Poppies are worn as a symbol of
remembrance.
• In the poem, a mother is saying
goodbye to her son who is going to
war.
.
Weir currently lives
in Derbyshire and
Manchester, where
she writes and runs
her own textile and
design business
Who is Jane Weir?
A Very Brief Biography
She was born in
1963 on a council
estate on the
outskirts of
Manchester
She has also written
about the poet
Charlotte Mew and the
writer Katherine
Mansfield and, more
recently, a poetic
biography of two highly
respected women
textile designers.
Her publications have
been diverse and include
a pamphlet called Alice
(2006) which was based
on the life of an early
20th century political
activist, Alice Wheeldon.
She describes
herself as
Anglo-Italian
She is a textile
designer, writer
and poet
As an adult, she
has lived ‘all over
the place’, including
in Belfast,
Northern Ireland
during the
Troubles (in the
1980s).
“Poppies” – “a multisensory explosion”
• Weir’s poem ‘Poppies’ was commissioned by
Carol Ann Duffy as part of a collection of
ten contemporary war poems which were
published in the Guardian in 2009, as part
of a response to the escalating conflict in
Afghanistan and the Iraq inquiry.
• Weir describes being surprised by the
‘overwhelming response’ she had from
readers across Europe to ‘Poppies’.
“Poppies” – “a multisensory explosion”
She commented in an
interview that, ‘I wrote
the piece from a woman's
perspective, which is
quite rare, as most poets
who write about war have
been men. As the mother
of two teenage boys, I
tried to put across how I
might feel if they were
fighting in a war zone.’
“Poppies” – “a multisensory explosion”
Weir has acknowledged
that ‘A lot of my poems
are narrative driven or
scenarios’, and in
‘Poppies’ she tells the
‘story’ of a mother’s
experience of pain and
loss as her son leaves
home to go to war.
Ominous
reminder that war
kills
Annotation
Repetition
emphasises the
parallel between
national and
personal mouring
Three days before Armistice Sunday
and poppies had already been placed
on individual war grave. Before you left,
I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals,
spasms of paper red, disrupting the blockade
of yellow bias binding around your blazer
School uniform?
Army?
Makes the reader
think of injured
body
Suggests she feels
shut out from her
son’s life
Another image of
being wounded
Sellotape bandaged around my hand,
She is still treating
I rounded up as many white cat hairs
him like a child
as I could, smoothed down your shirt’s
upturned collar, steeled the softening
of my face. I wanted to graze my nose
Alliteration
across the tip of your nose, play at
being Eskimos like we did when
Suggests she feels
shut out from her
you were little. I resisted the impulse
son’s life
to run my fingers through the gelled
blackthorns of your hair. all my words felt
flattened, rolled, turned into felt
Metaphor – suggests he’s no longer a child because he’s
styled his hair. His prickly hair suggests he is
unapproachable
Simile shows
the world from
the son’s
perspective –slowly
exciting
Sudden movement
suggests breaking
a boundary
melting, I was brave, as I walked
with you, to the front door, threw
it open, the world overflowing
The son’s excitement
like a treasure chest. A split second contrasts with the
mother’s sadness
and you were away, intoxicated.
After you’d gone I went into your bedroom,
released a song bird from its cage.
Symbolic of son
leaving
Later a single dove flew from the pear tree,
and this is where it has led me,
skirting the church yard walls, my stomach busy
making trucks, darts, pleats, hat-less, without
a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves
Metaphor – suggests he’s no longer a child because he’s
styled his hair. His prickly hair suggests he is
unapproachable
What is the
role of
women
during times
of conflict?
Consider how the poet makes use of gender
stereotypes within her poem...
Exploring the text:
Clothing and textile language
* Find all the references to clothing.
• Why are they used? What are the associations?
Sensory details
* What sensory details are there in stanza 2?
• Why are they used? What connotations do they
have?
Verbs
* Track the verbs used throughout the poem.
* What do you notice? How do they help to reveal
different emotions?
Question Time
1. Is the poem about war
or a poem about families?
2. How does the title refer to the poem?
3. Why does the mother have so many
feelings of anxiety and fear?
4. Why does the poet use the metaphor
of a bird?
5. Do you think the son is still alive?
• Explain.