2. A01 (12 marks) A02 (12 marks) A03 (6 marks)
Clear and intelligent interpretation of the poems
Clear and precise comparison of the poems
Select a wide range of quotations which justify your points
A (12 marks)
Analyse the poets’ use of language
Analyse the poets’ use of structure
Clearly explain the effects on the reader
Use subject specific terminology
A (6 marks)
Relate the poems to their historical and social contexts

3. Annotate your anthology to demonstrate your understanding.
What is Duffy’s ‘War Photograper’ about?
Knowledge
‘War Photographer’ tells of a photo-journalist who has travelled the world documenting conflicts, and how he deals with, and feels about, this job whilst back at home in England.
Skills:
Close reading of the poem, focussed on meaning and content.
Understanding:
Annotate your anthology to demonstrate your understanding.

4. Read the poem and discuss it in small groups
Read the poem and discuss it in small groups. We’re going to go through it stanza by stanza and you can share:
What you think it’s about
What emotions Duffy wants us to feel
What attitude Duffy has towards conflict
A01
Clear and intelligent interpretation of the poems
Select a wide range of quotations which justify your points

5. In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
A01
Clear and intelligent interpretation of the poems
Select a wide range of quotations which justify your points

6. He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don't explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.
A01
Clear and intelligent interpretation of the poems
Select a wide range of quotations which justify your points

7. Something is happening. A stranger's features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man's wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.
A01
Clear and intelligent interpretation of the poems
Select a wide range of quotations which justify your points

8. A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday's supplement. The reader's eyeballs prick
with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns his living and they do not care.
A01
Clear and intelligent interpretation of the poems
Select a wide range of quotations which justify your points

9. How is Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’ written?
Knowledge
Duffy packs her poetry full of language devices and uses structure to support her point.
Skills:
Close reading of the poem, focussed on language and structure.
Understanding:
Annotate your anthology to demonstrate your understanding.

10. “spools of suffering set out in ordered rows”
“…as though this were a church and he a priest…”
“ordinary pain + simple weather”
contrasted with
“fields which…explode…in a nightmare heat”
“a half-formed ghost”
“a hundred agonies in black and white”
“blood stained into foreign dust”
A02
Analyse the poets’ use of language
Clearly explain the effects on the reader
Use subject specific terminology

11. The poem, much like the photographs in the darkroom, is tightly structured and organised – “set out in ordered rows” – with four stanzas of equal length, and a regular rhyme-scheme.
What might Duffy be trying to suggest about conflict and people’s tendency to “not care” by making it all so uniform, regular, and predictable?
A02
Analyse the poets’ use of structure
Clearly explain the effects on the reader
Use subject specific terminology

12. Why was Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’ written?
Knowledge
Duffy thinks there is a disconnect between what happens across the globe, and how it is thought about in ‘safe’ places like England. The poem explores that disconnect.
Skills:
Link contextual factors to textual details.
Understanding:
Annotate your anthology to demonstrate your understanding.

13. “Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh.” “running children in a nightmare heat”
What is Duffy’s point? Is it about conflict in general, or these specific conflicts?
“running children in a nightmare heat”
This photo of Kim Phuc, taken during the Vietnam war, won a Pulitzer Prize and is sometimes credited with helping to end the war by bringing public attention to the horrors happening daily. Does Duffy believe people still pay the same attention to war photography nowadays? Does she think people should?
A03
Relate the poems to their historical and social contexts

14. How are ‘War Photographer’ and ‘Remains’ similar/different?
Knowledge
Both poems discuss a person who visited a war-zone and deals with their issues once they return to England. ‘Remains’ focuses on a soldier whilst ‘War Photographer’ focuses on a civilian.
Skills:
Make connections between the two poems.
Understanding:
Write a thirty minute essay response to the comparison question.

15. War Photographer Remains
Compare how the two poems portray the impact of wars on people who’ve returned home.
War Photographer
Remains

16. Compare how Duffy presents conflict in ‘War Photographer’ and how it’s presented in ‘Remains’.
Both poets explore the way conflict is brutal and horrifying. ‘War Photographer’ features the sibilant phrase ‘spools of suffering’ – this tells us that the war photographer has travelled the world documenting conflicts, and he’s now back in his dark room, developing the photos and remembering how much people were affected. We learn that, abroad, “fields…explode beneath the feet of running children in a nightmare”. They’re awake, so it’s a metaphorical nightmare: Duffy is stressing how terrifying it is to consider that war and conflict claims the lives of innocent children. The poem ‘Remains’ describes an incident where an Iraqi civilian has been shot, and somebody “tosses his guts back into his body”. The disgusting imagery, and the carelessness implied by ‘tosses’, both show us that war is brutal because it claims lives and turns people into merciless killers. The metaphor of “I see every round as it rips through his life” makes it clear that war is horrifying for the people there fighting it: the soldier himself is still haunted by the killing. This is in contrast to War Photographer, where it’s the journalists and the photographers who are haunted, rather than the soldiers.