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.

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.

 
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 blood stained into foreign dust.

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.
 Point Evidence Explain/Analyse
The short sentence
HE IS COMMITED TO HIS
“He has a job to do.” creates the effect that
JOB
it’s a simple fact and
there is no other
option. (Continue…)

HE IS RESPECTFUL OF HIS
SUBJECT

HE IS HAUNTED BY HIS
MEMORIES

HE RESPECTS THE
MEMORIES OF THE DEAD

HE EXPERIENCES A
DELAYED REACTION TO
THE TRAUMA OF WHAT HE
HAS SEEN
 Point Evidence Explain/Analyse

WE LIVE IN A VASTLY
DIFFERENT WORLD TO
THAT OF PEOPLE
LIVING IN WAR ZONES

WE HAVE ONLY A
PASSING INTEREST

WE ARE TOO CAUGHT

UP IN THE COMFORT
OF OUR OWN LIVES

OUR CONCERN IS
FLEETING AND
INSINCERE
 INTERMEDIATE 2 (2009)

Choose a poem which has as one of its

central concerns a personal, social or
religious issue. Show how the content and
poetic techniques used increase your
understanding of the issue.
A war photographer has returned from his latest
job to his quiet home in England.
He develops the spools of film he took in the
front line.
As the pictures appear, he remembers the horror
of the situations he was in.
He sends them off to the Sunday newspaper for
which he works, and the editor chooses the ones
he wants to print.
As he goes on his next job, he knows that his
pictures may not do any lasting good because
people who see them in newspapers do not care.
Written in the present tense, as if it is
happening now, to make the events more real
and more shocking.
The poem is written in a plain, matter-of-
fact style, with no complex vocabulary.

There are many stark statements - He has a

job to do... Something is happening... they do
not care.
In stanza one, alone is alone at the end of a
line, to illustrate the photographer's isolation
in his darkroom.

In stanza two, eyes rhymes with cries, so we

can see what the photographer sees and hear
what he hears.