Video: Poppies (Part 1)

﻿Hi there, Miss Walker here. I hope you're all well today. In this lesson, we are going to be looking at the first reading of the poem "Poppies," by Jane Weir. The poem is told from a mother's perspective, and we learn about the suffering that she is experiencing at the potential loss of her son, who's gone away to war. For the lesson, you will need a pen, paper, or anything to write on or write with. And obviously you need to make sure that your working area is free of any distractions, as well. Pause the video to make sure you've got everything sorted before we get started. Today's key question, how does Weir present the mother in the poem, "Poppies?" Let's start the lesson off by looking at thee key vocabulary we'll need for today, and in part two, we'll look at the context, and the background, and the motivations behind why Weir wrote the poem "Poppies." In part three, I'll provide you with a reading of the poem, and then we'll go on to establish meaning behind it in part four. In part five, we'll take all the information we've learned today, and put it together into a writing task. And in part six, we'll finish with a short review quiz. We have one key word for today, and that is the verb to lament. To lament means to passionately express sorrow or grief at the loss of something or someone. And the other words we can use for that are mourn, or to grieve. The word lament comes from the Latin lamentari, to wail, moan, or weep. The verb lament can also be referred to as a noun, so a lament, or the lament. Let's have a look at how it works in sentences. The girl lamented the loss of her laptop. So she expressed great sorrow at the fact that she had lost her laptop. So we can see here that it doesn't always have to refer to losing someone. It can also refer to the loss of something far less important, like a laptop, for example. And in which case, you would be exaggerating your feeling of sadness. In example two, in the play the character laments the loss of his brother who died in the war, so the character is expressing sorrow or grief at the fact they have lost their brother. Pause the video here to complete the task. Decide which sentences use the verb to lament correctly. One, the lady lamented the spilt milkshake. Two, the boy wrote a lament for his dying dog. Three, the child was lamented and wild. Pause the video, and choose which sentence has used the verb, to lament, correctly. Well done, it was one. The lady lamented the spilt milkshake. Obviously, not an absolute travesty, or tragedy. However, she is still sad that she has spilt her milkshake. Please now take a moment to write a sentence of your own that uses the word lament. Use the image to help you. It's a picture of the word money written down, and someone is just about to wipe out the money. So you've now got to use that image to help you write your own sentence. Resume the video once you're finished. We'll also be making use of the term dramatic monologue from previous lessons. If you've not already got the definition in your books, or you're not familiar with it, do just pause the video and note down the definition. In this section, we're going to take a look at who the poet Jane Weir is, and why she wrote the poem. Jane Weir is the poet of "Poppies." She's an English poet, and she's still alive today. Weir was commissioned by Carol Ann Duffy to help write a collection of war poems called "Exit Wounds," which was published in The Guardian in 2009, and it was part of a response to the escalating conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq at the time. Weir's purpose was to convey the suffering caused by the soldiers' deaths, and it's the suffering caused for a mother who has lost her son. The poem is based on the concept of poppies as memorials, and therefore on this idea of memory, and remembering those people we've lost in conflicts. It's a dramatic monologue set in the modern day. The poet imagines the feelings of a mother whose son has left to go to war. Throughout the poem, Weir retraces the mother's footsteps and memories of her son as a child. Quick true or false. Write the correct statement if the answer is false. One, the poem is part of a collection called "Exit Wounds." Two, the poem is a dramatic monologue. Three, the poem conveys soldiers suffering before they die. Four, the poem is set in World War One, and finally five, true or false, the poem is told from a mother's perspective. Pause the video now to correct the statements that were false, and resume the video once you've done that. Well done, so one is true. Two is also true. However, three is false. The poem conveys the suffering caused by the soldier's deaths. And four is also false. The poem is set in the modern day, not World War One. Five is true. Well done if you got all of them correct. In the opening lines, Weir talks about Armistice Sunday, which took place on the 11th of November, 1918. And it commemorates the end of fighting in World War One. Poppies grew on Flanders fields, which are the battlefields in Belgium, where the fighting took place, and they've become a symbol to celebrate, and remember those who died. Remembrance Sunday, which takes place every year now, recognises those who have died in all wars. I'd now like you to answer the questions below in full sentences. I'll read them out, and then you'll pause the video to complete them. One, which conflicts were taking place when Weir wrote "Poppies" in 2009? Two, what idea do poppies represent or symbolise? Three, whose perspective is the poem written from? Which day commemorates the soldiers who have died in all conflicts since World War I? Pause the video now to answer the questions. Let's check the responses. So the poem follows on from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan that were taking place at the time. Two, poppies represent the idea of memory. Three, the poem is written from a mother's perspective. Weir used her own experience as a mother of two sons to help write it from this perspective. Four, Remembrance Day commemorates the soldiers who've died in all conflicts since World War One. I'm now going to show you a reading of the poem, "Poppies." There won't be a glossary on the screen, so afterwards, once the video has stopped playing, I'll run through the poem, and you can take down the definitions of any words you are unsure of from the glossary. 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 red paper, 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, stilled 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, 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 songbird from its cage. Later, a single dove flew from the pear tree, and this is where it has led me, skirting the church 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 of 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. I'm now going to spend roughly three seconds on each slide. You'll have the opportunity to pause the video and take down the meaning of any words that you're not sure of from the glossary. We're now going to go on to establish the meaning in the poem. Let's start with a summary of each stanza. There are four in total. Stanza one, the mother reflects on the present situation, and Remembrance Day. The concept of poppies is used to trigger the speaker's memory of her son leaving for war. She remembers pinning a poppy to the lapel of her son's school blazer. Two, the speaker describes helping her son as a teenager to get ready for Remembrance Day. She remembers their closeness, and has an urge to run her fingers through his gelled hair, and graze her nose against his. Stanza three, time has moved forward in the poem, and the speaker is sending her son off to join the military. The speaker describes how she managed to contain her sorrow until he has left, and then describes her feelings of emptiness that his absence brings to her. It is ambiguous whether or not her son has died. The poem ends with the speaker at a war memorial. She is thinking once again of her son, as a young child, filled with joy and laughter in the playground. Complete the following questions. One, what does the mother pin to her son's lapel? Two, what does the mother resist doing to her son's hair? Three, how does the mother feel once her son has left? Four, is the reader explicitly told that the son dies? Five, where is the speaker at the end of the poem? Use the information from the stanza summaries to help you answer these questions, and resume the video once you've finished answering them. Let's check our responses. The mother pins a poppy to her son's lapel. She resists running her fingers through his hair. She feels empty and lost. The reader is never actually explicitly told that the son is dead. Instead, we infer it from the language and the images that Weir creates. In the final stanza, the speaker is at the war memorial. We've looked at the stanza summaries, and it's now time to zoom in on specific sets of lines from the poem to help us establish meaning. Here's the first group of lines, lines three to five. Before you left, I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals, spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade. The mother pins a poppy on her son. What does this tell us about his age? Spasms are involuntary and painful contractions of the muscles. How does the phrase "spasms of red" suggest how she is feeling? Pause the video to answer the questions. Let's check the answers. So this is a tender act that a parent might do for a child on a big day. So we can infer that he is perhaps young. However, it is possible that she is pinning the poppy onto the lapel of his military uniform, before he heads off to service. Two, the word spasms has associations to short, but severe stabs of physical pain. Red also suggests blood and injury. It is a powerful, emotive image that makes the reader understand that the mother is suffering in some way. She's in a great deal of pain. The poem becomes a lament for the lost son. It's an expression of grief and suffering in some kind of way. Here's the second group of lines. I wanted to graze my nose across the tip of your nose, playing at being Eskimos like we did when you were little. An Eskimo kiss is when people rub noses together, as an equivalent to kissing, because Eskimos lips aren't often exposed in the cold. What does the term imply about how their relationship used to be? Two, graze also means to cause damage to a surface. Why has the poet broken this tender image by referring to damage and injury? Pause the video to answer the questions. That gentle touch of the Eskimo kiss on the tip of a nose is delicate and a soft action, creating a sense of fragility and delicateness of the mother and son's relationship. The line implies that they used to be closer when he was younger, perhaps because he relied on her more when he was a child. The word graze suggests that her memory is tainted by his loss, and by her longing for him, it's gently damaged. The tenderness and softness of the poem is constantly being broken up by words suggesting injury. For example, spasm, two, that also hints at this idea of injury and pain. Next set of lines, all my words, flattened, rolled, turned into felt. What does this phrase mean? And two, her words have been flattened and rolled. What do these words suggest that the mother is feeling? So think about the connotations of those words there. Pause the video and answer the questions. So I think these lines suggest that perhaps she's lost for words. She feels crushed by her son's departure, and she finds it impossible to say a goodbye that would be fitting of this devastating occasion. The words flattened and rolled suggest that they no longer exist. She no longer has something to say, or someone to say it to. And these words may represent the anxiety and grief that parents feel when they know they can no longer protect their children. The mother appears flat and vulnerable, just like her words. Lines 18 to 21. I was brave as I walked with you to the front door, threw it open, the world overflowing like a treasure chest. One, the speaker uses the personal pronoun I to tell the reader that she was brave. Why is it surprising that she talks about her bravery? Two, the door is a metaphor for the world outside. Why are parents anxious about letting their children into the outside world, do you think? And three, what does the image of the treasure chest represent? Pause the video to answer the questions now. So it's quite strange that she talks about her own bravery, because typically in a poem about war, you speak about the soldier's bravery, and that's referred to. The use of I there reinforces the mother's perspective and experience. To admit you were brave as an adult is a powerful statement because it implies that you are feeling vulnerable, which is something that we don't typically associate with our parents or adults in general. However, here it's used to help us understand her pain. Secondly, the door to the house will open onto the dangerous world outside. Parents can no longer protect their children in the same way once they have gone through the door. And finally, it is a place full of exciting and enticing experiences that the child, or the young adult is just about to discover and enjoy. Here's our final set of lines taken from the fourth and final stanza. The mother has to lean against the war memorial. How does this image suggest she is feeling in the final stanza? Two, wishbones are fragile and can be snapped easily. When two people snap the wishbone between them, the person who comes away with the larger part gets to make a wish. Why has Weir used this image, this term wishbone here? Pause the video to answer the questions. Typically when we lean on something, it is a strong and sturdy object that we need to keep us upright, perhaps to prevent us from falling or slipping. The image represents how fragile and vulnerable she is. That's one interpretation. Alternatively, her leaning against the object could mean that she feels closer to him in some way, because the war memorial represents his death. So that might be why. Second question, the image of the wishbone emphasises the mother's fragility. It is likely that the war memorial is the bigger part of the wishbone, therefore the mother is the smaller part, and thus not able to make the wish. This implies that the war memorial, which represents war and fighting, has won. The mother is not able to wish for her son to come back. The war has taken him. We've got to that stage in the lesson where we now need to complete our writing tasks. So let's take all our learning from the previous parts of the lesson, and put it together into a written response. So your task is to summarise how Weir has presented the mother in the poem, and you're going to write one paragraph doing that, using at least two words or phrases from the poem. Here are some suggestions of things that you might want to include. Remember, you don't have to. It's just here for guidance. Firstly, the memory of pinning the poppy on his lapel. Two, holding back from running her hands through his hair. Three, her loss of words when he leaves to join the military. Four, how she leans against the war memorial. Three words I'd like you to include, lament, either in the verb or noun form. Suffering, and vulnerable. Pause the video now, and spend roughly 15 minutes completing the summary. Well done. There are two examples now. Here's the first one that you can compare your own written response to. So we're looking at how the mother has been presented. In "Poppies," the mother shares memories from her son's childhood. For example, in stanza two, she says, "She wanted to play at being Eskimos, "like we did when you were little." Her memories are sweet, however, there are also images of suffering and injury in them. She uses the words spasm and graze to suggest that she is experiencing pain at the loss of her son. Her lament for his death finishes with an image of her at the war memorial. We can infer that she is desperate for him to return, because she listens out to his playground voice catching on the wind. Here's a more developed response. In "Poppies," the mother laments the loss of her son. Memories of the boy's childhood abound as the mother recalls the happy moments of preparing him for Remembrance Days. "I pinned on onto your lapel," she says. However, her memories are tainted by the images of injury. Spasms and graze portray the ideas of suffering, and the reader understands that the mother is experiencing a devastating loss. The tender and fragile moments of his childhood will never leave her, and in the final stanza, Weir emphasises her vulnerability to the memory of him as she longs to catch his playground voice on the wind. An impossible wish that stresses the pain caused by the mother's loss. Pause here and decide which written response you are going to compare your own answer to. So the lesson is nearly over. You've just got one task left to do, and that's the short five question review quiz. So go ahead and start that, and then come back to the video. So that's the first lesson on "Poppies" finished. Today, we have looked at how the mother has been presented. Her suffering, her pain in experiencing the loss of her son. In tomorrow's lesson, we'll be looking at how loss and suffering have been presented in the poem through Weir's choice of language, form, and structure. I'll see you then, have a good.

Exit Quiz: Poppies (Part 1)

Completed: Poppies (Part 1)

In this lesson, we will explore the key ideas in Jane Weir's poem 'Poppies' (2009). Weir presents the deep suffering experienced by a mother who has lost her son to war. You will be provided with key information about the meaning of the poem to help to develop your understanding of this text.

English

Poppies (Part 1)

Video

Final Quiz

Lesson Complete