Canan
24.12.2005, 18:51
War photographer
In his dark room 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.
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 the man’s wife, how he sought approval
Without words to do what someone must
And how the blood stained into foreign dust.
A hundred agonies in black-and-white
From which his editor will pick five or six
For Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs pricks
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.
This poem was written by Carol Ann Duffy after she interviewed a war photographer Don McCullin, who worked as a photographer during the Vietnam war. I think his the guy that took the famous picture of a couple of kids running with flames covering their bodies (very famous picture).
The poem compares England to Vietnam. The photographer is seen to move from one world to another. From harsh suffering in war zones to simple sufferings seen in England e.g. the weather.
*in the first stanza the poet is alone in his red room developing his pictures
*in the second stanza a comparision betwwen the photographers job and his home is made.
*in the 3rd stanza one of the pictures develop (the image of a dying man)
*in the last stanza once again a comparison is made between his experince and what people in england would thinks of it.
In his dark room 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.
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 the man’s wife, how he sought approval
Without words to do what someone must
And how the blood stained into foreign dust.
A hundred agonies in black-and-white
From which his editor will pick five or six
For Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs pricks
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.
This poem was written by Carol Ann Duffy after she interviewed a war photographer Don McCullin, who worked as a photographer during the Vietnam war. I think his the guy that took the famous picture of a couple of kids running with flames covering their bodies (very famous picture).
The poem compares England to Vietnam. The photographer is seen to move from one world to another. From harsh suffering in war zones to simple sufferings seen in England e.g. the weather.
*in the first stanza the poet is alone in his red room developing his pictures
*in the second stanza a comparision betwwen the photographers job and his home is made.
*in the 3rd stanza one of the pictures develop (the image of a dying man)
*in the last stanza once again a comparison is made between his experince and what people in england would thinks of it.