‘Alternative’ Conflict Q: How can I comment maturely on an alternative perspective of conflict? Word of the Day: Serene (adj.): Calm, peaceful and untroubled Starter: The next two poems we are going to look at are entitled: ‘Poppies’ and ‘The Falling Leaves’. What do these titles reveal or suggest about their style, content or atmosphere? Challenge: How might they differ from any of the other poems that we have looked at?

‘Alternative’ Conflict Often the theme of conflict in literature is presented through masculine characters and experiences as historically our associations of soldiers, warfare and politics are male dominated. You may have noticed this is the case in each of the poems we have looked at so far. However, there are of course examples which consider the female perspective and experience of conflict and power. We are going to study two such poems this week.

Group Work Task: In groups of 3-4 you will be given a copy of ‘The Falling Leaves’ and ‘Poppies’. You will have the remainder of the lesson to prepare your responses to the poems in a format that will allow you to teach it to your peer group in Monday’s lesson. You have a copy of each poem, a short info sheet on relevant context (only Falling Leaves) and a list of quotations to focus your analysis on. Over the course of the next 45 minutes you will be expected to complete the following: Answers to the following (supported by specific evidence) How would you describe the tone of the poem? What is interesting about the perspective? How would you describe the narrative voice? How would you articulate the poet’s message? Annotations: Read the full poem and then use the identified key quotations to consider precise use of language: For each quotation you should identify the techniques used and the impact as well as the key words and connotations. Try to tie your analysis here into the intended writer’s message that you have identified Challenge: Consider the precise similarities and differences between this poem and the others we have looked at.

The Falling Leaves November 1915 Today, as I rode by, I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree In a still afternoon, When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky, But thickly, silently, They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon; And wandered slowly thence For thinking of a gallant multitude Which now all withering lay, Slain by no wind of age or pestilence, But in their beauty strewed Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.

The Falling Leaves The poet Margaret Postgate Cole (1893-1980) was committed to political issues from an early age. An atheist, feminist and socialist, she went to Cambridge University. She became a pacifist during the First World War. As well as writing poetry, she engaged with many of the big social and political issues of her time. She campaigned against the policy of conscription – when ordinary men are forced to join the armed forces and fight in the war. In the late 1930s she rethought her approach to pacifism and supported military intervention in the Spanish Civil War as a way of directly challenging the rise of fascism in Europe. The Falling Leaves is a woman's response to the huge number of men who died in the First World War. When it began in July 1914, the war was very popular with the British public. It was seen as a way of punishing an aggressive Germany and politicians confidently predicted that it would be over by Christmas. By November 1915, when The Falling Leaves was written, thousands of soldiers were dying for the sake of a few hundred metres of gained territory. In 1915 alone, the French lost over one million men, the Germans more than 600,000 and the British more than a quarter of a million. Most poetry of the First World War was written by the men who fought in it. It tends to focus on violent action or the death and despair that follow it. The Falling Leaves provides an interesting female point of view. It expresses the feelings of someone who is not on the battlefield but yet who still feels the loss it brings. There is a great contrast between the quiet, normal everyday life the poet is leading (going out for a relaxing ride) and the violent events happening in the war. The collision between this quietness and the violence is mirrored in the tightly structured form expressing outward calm with the alternating long-short lines suggesting inner turmoil. Being so far away, the poet is also able to see the war in perspective. Instead of the death of an individual friend, she sees thousands of bodies returning.

Poppies by Jane Weir Three days before Armistice Sunday and poppies had already been placed on individual war graves. Before you left, I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals, spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer. Sellotape bandaged around my hand, I rounded up as many white cat hairs as I could, smoothed down your shirt's upturned collar, steeled the softening of my face. I wanted to graze my nose across the tip of your nose, play at being Eskimos like we did when you were little. I resisted the impulse to run my fingers through the gelled blackthorns of your hair. All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt, slowly melting. I was brave, as I walked with you, to the front door, threw it open, the world overflowing like a treasure chest. A split second and you were away, intoxicated. After you'd gone I went into your bedroom, released a song bird from its cage. Later a single dove flew from the pear tree, and this is where it has led me, skirting the church yard walls, my stomach busy making tucks, darts, pleats, hat-less, without a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves. On reaching the top of the hill I traced the inscriptions on the war memorial, leaned against it like a wishbone. The dove pulled freely against the sky, an ornamental stitch. I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind

Poppies The poem is set in the present day but reaches right back to the beginning of the Poppy Day tradition. Armistice Sunday began as a way of marking the end of the First World War in 1918. It was set up so people could remember the hundreds and thousands of ordinary men who had been killed in the First World War. Today, the event is used to remember soldiers of all wars who have died since then. When Poppies was written, British soldiers were still dying in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a way of trying to understand the suffering that deaths caused, the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy asked a number of writers to compose poems, including Jane Weir. The poem is about the nature of grief. The mother is speaking directly to her son but a son who shifts in time. There is: The son leaving home for school on his own for the first time. The son who has just been killed. Beneath the surface the son dying violently in a field hospital in Afghanistan. It is as if all these different versions of her son fixed exist together inside her. When the poem reaches a moment in the present (line 26) she is vulnerable, without protection. The final lines then go back to the past tense “"I traced…"”. It is as if the present holds too much pain and her memories can only be expressed if distanced in imagery held safely in the past.

Significant Phrases: “Today as I rode by...” “Brown leaves dropping from the tree” “But thickly, silently, They fell” “In their beauty strewed...” Identify devices/key words Consider meaning/implications Challenge: How might these phrases change from a masculine perspective? How do they differ from poems like Charge of the Light Brigade?

Significant Phrases: Identify devices/key words Consider meaning/implications “Before you left, I pinned one to your lapel..” “All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt, slowly melting.” “A split second and you were away, intoxicated” “On reaching the top of the hillU traced the inscriptions.” “I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice...” Challenge: How might these phrases change from a masculine perspective? How do they differ from poems like Charge of the Light Brigade?

Plenary: In your books, complete the following response: How do the poets convey different perspectives of conflict? Both Poppies and Bayonet Charge present different perspectives of conflict… An alternative perspective of conflict is achieved in the poem Poppies as ..... This compares with.... Which presents an alternative perspecitve which is….

Both Poppies and Bayonet Charge present alternative perspectives of conflict. Weir presents a first person narrative of a mother’s emotional reaction to her son leaving. Through a range of imagery which includes textiles, nature and emblems of peace, interspersed with fragments of memories of ‘when you were little’, Weir creates a serene and poignant tone, capturing the sadness of loss and a mother’s fear for her son. This domestic imagery might be said to work together to present a more feminine view of conflict, highlighting the fact that it is not just those who fight the war who suffer, but also those left behind. In ‘Bayonet Charge’, Hughes packs the poem with similes in an attempt to describe the indescribably. Violent imagery