Happy national poetry day Year 10 Write down

Happy national poetry day Year 10! Write down your favourite quote from the board.

Key term: Connotations: A connotation is something that we associate with a word. It can be positive or negative depending on our experience. For example, if I say: Beach The positive connotations for one person might be: Happy, sand, golden, holiday, sea, family, relaxing, tranquil Or negative connotations could be: Litter, windy, sand-storm, seagulls, sharks, congested, tourists Connotations also change based on what else is going on in the poem. Connotations challenge: Write down in the back of your books the first 3 words that spring to your mind when I say…. Sello-tape graze Treasure chest dove intoxicated reinforcements

Lonely without them angry upset hope proud On your poppy write down five feelings a mother would go through when their son goes to war.

Power and Conflict This poem shoes two types of conflict 1. Mother wanting to keep son Son wanting freedom and to grow up 2. Home and domestic life War

Let’s read the poem Look out for any images to do with textiles This shows how the mother is trying to keep a normal domestic home life but can’t against war. UNDERLINE THEM Look out for any images of conflict e. g. “blockade” line 5 means a line of soldiers who make a defence against the enemy. CIRCLE THEM

AO 2 STRUCTURE Dramatic Monologue Where one person speaks in first person “I” • Who’s perspective is it? • Who is the focus on? • Why?

AO 2 STRUCTURE 2. Enjambment 3. Free Verse 4. Ceasura 5. Stanzas of different sizes Chaotic impact of conflict on those who were trying to carry on at home.

Flip your poppy over. On the other side list any words or phrases from the poem that link to themes signposted in each of the petals below. Some words or phrases may go in more than one petal. Injury Childhood Nature Loss Clothes/ toys

Domestic stationary used to catch cat hairs, connotes: childish arts & crafts/ wrapping presents/ positive family experiences Juxtaposes with “bandaged” which foreshadows the potential injuries her son may incur in war. “Sellotape bandaged round my hand”

AO 2 TASK Spiky/tough – suggests he is harder to touch now he’s older. “Blackthorns”

AO 3 TASK Now identify any examples of language where domestic imagery is linked to war imagery. Highlight or underline these quotes. Spiky/tough – suggests he is harder to touch now he’s older. “Blackthorns”

AO 3 - Context • Weir lived in N. Ireland in the 1980 s during the Troubles (like Heaney Storm on the Island). So she has seen the impact of conflict on home life. • She was a textile designer so there is a lot of imagery to reflect that. • She is a mother to two sons. She wanted to show the viewpoint of a mother.

Tricky Words: Lapel- a collar Flashback to the day her son leaves. Three days before Armistice Sunday and poppies had already been placed on individual war graves. Before your left, I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals, spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer. She pins the poppy onto his yellow blazer and the red poppy disrupts the yellow Words that link to war and pain

Tricky Words: impulse- an urge She wants to hold onto their love and bond when he was a little boy. Metaphor- his pieces of hair are gelled black thorns. Shows he has grown up and the thorn makes him seem like he is hard to touch now he is older. 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. She tries to not cry. She becomes “steel” - hard Can you find words or ideas that link to home life?

Verb “threw” Aggressive, sudden breaking of boundaries Slowly melting. I was brave, as I walked with you, to the front door, threw This simile shows the son’s it open, the world overflowing Means drunk. Like he perspective. War had like a treasure chest. A split second made his decision in the potential it was exciting excitement of it all and you were away, intoxicated. After you’d gone I went into your bedroom, Could mean she released a songbird from its cages. her screaming and crying. Structureher Later a single dove flew from the pear tree, Or the bird is a metaphor son has left. for him being released from and this is where it has led me, the cage of home What do you skirting the church yard walls, my stomach busy notice about Triple of verbs to do with making tucks, darts, pleats, hat-less, without the sentences sewing. Her motherly role. a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves. He has no coat or gloves on outside- she is open to the cold and pain. now he has gone?

Tricky Words: Inscription- writing/engraving Just names but to mothers and families they are people Idea of the dove again, either to show he is dead or is free from mother. Top of the hill could be metaphor for the peak of her pain climbing the mountain she has had to go through 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 in the wind. Alliteration of “h” sound like her breathing in. She is desperate to hear his childhood voice. She is at a war memorial- link back to first stanza about the poppies on war graves

Language where home blends with war

Language where home blends with war “graze my nose” an injury from war

Language where home blends with war an injury “Sellotape bandaged around my hand”

Language where home blends with war a group of soldiers to help “reinforcements of scarf and gloves”