Hi there.

Welcome to your lesson today on understanding the poem "Poppies." I'm Miss Sutherland and I'll be walking you through today's lesson.

Our learning outcome for today is to be able to explain the main themes and ideas explored in the poem "Poppies" by Jane Weir.

We have three key words today.

The first one is grief.

Grief is intense sorrow usually associated with the death of something or someone.

Perspective.

Perspective means a point of view, and timeless.

Timeless means not restricted to a particular time or date.

I'll give you a moment to jot those keywords down or reread them because they are going to be really important in today's understanding of the poem, "Poppies." Pause the video, have a reread or write them down.

Off you go.

Let's look at our learning cycles for today.

In the first part of today's lesson, we'll be reading, enjoying and exploring the poem "Poppies." And then in our second learning cycle, we'll be digging deeper into the poem "Poppies." So let's begin with exploring "Poppies." So the first question I'd like you to consider is, who exactly does war impact? List as many different people that you can think of.

Pause the video and discuss that now.

Let's go through who does war impact.

You may have said that war impacts soldiers themselves and we've seen that through Wilfred Owens poetry where he talks about what life is like on the trenches.

We clearly see that war has a dramatic and drastic impact on soldiers themselves.

War also impacts all citizens.

It impacts also those of a country that do not fight because violence and bloodshed can spread to any part of that country at any moment.

It also affects all citizens in terms of economic status because war can damage a country's economy as well.

What also impacts soldiers' loved ones, so the friends, the family of those soldiers that go off to fight, they are impacted in a huge way due to the worry, anxiety and grief they may feel about their loved one fighting and potentially dying at war.

Children are also impacted by the war.

This could be the children of soldiers who live without a father figure in their lives.

It could be children that then go on to face grief and bereavement because their, a loved one of theirs might have died.

War can also impact children because young children actually might be asked to fight themselves and war also impacts future generations.

The loss of war can be felt generations down the line and the impact of bloodshed in a country can be felt for many, many years after the war ends.

Well done if you said any of those.

Now let's look at the poem's title, which is "Poppies." What comes to your mind when you hear that title? Pause the video and have a brief think.

You may have said that "Poppies" brings to mind patriotism because the poppy flower is a symbol of the honour of soldiers that fought for their country.

"Poppies" might also bring to your mind sacrifice because the poppy flower could represent the sacrifice that young men made in World War I.

Poppy may bring to your mind battlefields because the poppy flower was one that flourished in the battlefield of World War I.

"Poppies" may bring to mind remembrance 'cause poppies are the flower that people wear on their clothes between October and November every year to remember fallen soldiers.

And lastly, bravery.

In the same way that the poppy flower represents sacrifice, the poppy flower can also represent the bravery of the young men who, who had the courage to enlist for the war and fight for their country believing in a cause greater than themselves.

Now let's read the poem "Poppies" together.

Have a think about what we've discussed so far as we read it.

So have a think about who wore impacts and have a think about the poppy flower because they're going to be relevant in the poem.

Let's begin the reading.

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 paper red, 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 up turned 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 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 spit 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 yard 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 trace 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 on the wind.

Now that is a very powerful poem by Jane Weir.

I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Let's discuss these questions.

Firstly, what are your first impressions of the poem? Do you like it? Why or why not? How did the poem make you feel and why? And what might the story of the poem be? What do you think it's about? Pause the video and discuss those important questions with your partner now.

My first impression of this poem was that it's a very emotional poem indeed.

I did like it at the same time as finding it very, very sad.

And the poem did make me feel quite sad to be honest because I can feel the mother's emotion as I read it and I can kind of sympathise with how that mother might be feeling in that moment.

The story of the poem, perhaps you said that this feels like a mother saying goodbye to her son as he leaves for war.

Now let's take a look at something very important in this poem.

Let's take a look at the perspective.

One of the most important things about this poem is indeed the perspective that it offers.

So the points of view that it offers.

I want you to discuss with your partner now, who is the speaker in "Poppies?" What is the form of this poem and why might Jane Weir have chosen this form? Pause the video and answer those three questions.

Off you go.

Now you may have said the speaker in "Poppies" is a mother, and the form of the poem is a dramatic monologue.

That's where there is one speaker who talks about their point of view on something and there's no other perspective.

And Jane, why might Jane Weir have chosen this form? Perhaps Jane Weir chose the dramatic monologue form with solely the mother speaking to put emphasis on the mother's perspective during wartime.

And this may have been particularly important for Jane Weir because potentially the perspective of a mother during World War I or any war perhaps is quite often neglected and people don't really recognise how it feels to be a mother during wartime.

So perhaps Jane Weir really wanted to raise awareness and shine a light on what that experience is like.

How is this poem timeless? That's your last question to discuss.

Pause the video and consider that now.

Now the poem could be considered timeless.

That means not being bound to a particular time period or date because a mother's pain sending their son off to war and the grief they experience because of that is not just bound to World War I.

That pain of that, that mother's pain and that mother's grief could very much extend to any type of conflict that goes on in any region of the world at any time.

Now "Poppies" is from a collection called Exit Wounds, which was compiled by the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

And this collection explores the lesser-recognized experiences of war.

So written from the perspective of a mother, Weir presents the quiet trauma of those who lose close relatives at war.

Now, I want you to discuss what emotions exactly does the mother experience in "Poppies?" What emotions do you recognise in her perspective? Pause the video and discuss that now.

I noticed that the mother potentially feels a lot of nostalgia for a time where her son was young, for her son's childhood because she reminisces on a lot of the special moments they had together.

I also feel the emotion of bravery because I feel like the mom had a really hard time saying goodbye to her son, but she does it and she does let him go.

I also sense the emotion of grief, particularly towards the end of the poem where it suggests that the soldier may have died.

And now I want you to discuss where you see quiet trauma in "Poppies." Pause the video and discuss that now.

Now what we mean by quiet trauma is this distressing and disturbing experience that perhaps isn't fully communicated or fully shown.

It's a distressing and disturbing experience that perhaps people keep under wraps and don't overtly express.

So let's see where we can find that in this poem.

We potentially see quiet trauma in the second stanza where the mother is saying goodbye to her son and she really wants to graze his nose.

She really wants to graze, she really wants to run her fingers through his hair and protect him and treat him as if he's that innocent little boy.

But she doesn't, and I think that shows quiet trauma because clearly saying goodbye to her son is really distressing for her.

And the prospect of him not coming back alive is really traumatic for her.

But she doesn't express that feeling.

She doesn't tell him how she feels.

She doesn't even show how she feels.

She steels her face and I think that shows the mother's quiet trauma.

Now let's answer this question to check your understanding of the poem so far.

Whose perspective is "Poppies" written from? The sister of a soldier, the wife of a soldier, or the mother of a soldier? Pause the video and answer that question.

Well done if you said "Poppies" is written from the perspective of a soldier's mother.

The next question I want you to answer is, why might Jane Weir have chosen to focus on the mother's perspective? Pause the video and consider that question.

Jane Weir may have chosen to focus on the mother's perspective solely because she wanted to show the quiet trauma within a lesser-recognized experience of war.

Remember we've said that we often see war from the perspective of a soldier, but we don't often hear about how mothers experience war or how even women experience war.

So perhaps that was Jane Weir's motive in writing this poem.

Now, I want you to look at this photograph from World War I.

It pictures women saying goodbye to soldiers as they leave for the war.

I want you to discuss how do the feelings, images, and messages in "Poppies" compare with the message of the photograph? Here is a sentence starter to help you.

The photograph suggests that, whereas the poem poppies highlights.

Pause the video and discuss that question now.

Perhaps you said that the photograph suggests that women were very jubilant in sending their men off to war and were full of a patriotic feeling and that overpowered any sense of sadness that they may have felt sending their men off to war.

Whereas the poem "Poppies" highlights that quite often women, especially mothers, may feel this overwhelming sense of grief at sending their sons off to war.

And that feeling of grief isn't quite captured in that photograph at all, and nor was it captured in a lot of the propaganda of the time.

So Jane Weir does indeed raise awareness of what it would be like as a woman or a mother in World War I and indeed any other war.

Now I want you to write a short paragraph explaining why Jane Weir may have written "Poppies." In the paragraph I want you to include what the most common perspectives on war were during World War I and now, and what World War I propaganda depicted about the women of Britain and their attitudes towards war.

Pause the video and get writing now.

Off you go.

Let's go through some ideas.

Jane Weir may have been conscious that many World War I stories were told from the perspective of soldiers.

This meant that awareness of the trauma and grief of World War I was largely attached to a male perspective.

In "Poppies" where it uses a dramatic monologue to provide insight into a woman's perspective during World War I.

In particular, the speaker in "Poppies" is a mother of a soldier, giving the reader a thoughtful, poignant insight into the quiet trauma that many mothers faced and indeed continue to face when their children are involved in war.

As a mother of boys herself, Jane Weir may have wanted to raise awareness of a perspective that is often neglected in war accounts, the trauma of which is nonetheless painful or significant.

Now this answer uses tentative language to express possibility rather than certainty because of course we can't be sure on why Jane Weir wrote this poem.

Examples of tentative language are using the word may, perhaps, might, could.

I want you to check your work.

Did you also use tentative language to express possibility rather than certainty when speaking of Weir's purpose? Pause the video and check your work now.

Great job on that writing task.

Let's now dig deeper into the poem "Poppies." Now I want you to discuss what feelings do these images bring to mind? They're all images that appear in the poem.

Pause the video and discuss.

Let's start with this image of a dove flying.

This image may act as a symbol of the mother letting go of her son.

She lets him fly freely.

That could be a symbol of her allowing him to grow up and embark on his own path and leave home.

If we look at the dove bird specifically, doves often connote innocence.

So perhaps this, the use of the dove bird is reflective of how the mother longs for a time where her son was innocent before the war as a child.

Flying could also be seen, flying into the sky can also be seen as a symbol of going to heaven.

You may have heard of the expression fly high when someone dies to express that that person has gone to heaven, but doves also connote peace.

So the second mention of the dove bird could mean that both the son and the mother are at peace with the son's death potentially because that means he's free from harm, potentially it's because of the noble sacrifice he made.

Let's now look at this image that's occurs in the poem of stitching.

Stitching is a symbol of domestic life and it could reflect the way the mother took pleasure in the simple ways of caring for her son whilst he was at home.

Weir was also a textile designer.

So she may have used textile imagery to symbolise how grief can become deeply rooted within someone.

So if we think about stitching as binding things together, it could reflect how grief is almost sewn into the soul and hearts of the mother.

And lastly, again, stitches bind things together.

So the use of textile imagery could also reflect how the mother wants to maintain closeness with her son.

Just like stitching binds one piece of fabric to another piece of fabric, potentially that could reflect the mother and the son and how she wants to remain close to him potentially.

That's why she talks of his childhood and a time where they were close.

The last image we're going to look at is this idea of her son on the playground.

The phrase playground voice is suggestive of her son's innocence before the war.

And again, it could reflect how she longs for that simpler time in their lives.

The mother thus seems nostalgic for an earlier time.

Nostalgic means longing.

Nostalgic means feeling a sense of longing and fondness for the past.

And we are reminded with this imagery of childhood that the soldier is not merely a soldier.

He is a son and was once a little boy.

The imagery thus humanises the soldier and helps us sympathise with the mother's grief.

In a lot of war poems that we've read, we've seen how soldiers are dehumanised and they're only seen for the advantage they bring to battle.

But this poem shows that soldiers are not just commodities, they're not just weapons and they're not just cogs in a machine.

This poem shows that they're human, that they're loved, that they're cherished by their family.

Let's answer this question to check your understanding.

Which quote is suggestive of the son's death and mother and son's peace? Pause the video and answer that question now.

Well done if you said the dove pulled freely against the sky could be suggestive of the son's death and the mother and son's peace.

The reason for this is because we said that something flying towards the sky could represent the son going to heaven, but also the dove bird is a symbol of peace.

So that could represent both the son's death and the mother and son's peace at his death.

The textile imagery could symbolise.

Pause the video and complete that sentence.

Well done if you said the textile imagery could symbolise the mother's longing to remain close with her son.

Remember how we said that stitching binds one piece of fabric to another piece of fabric? And this could represent how the mother wants to remain close and bound with her son despite him going off to war.

Now, your last practise task today.

I want you to find a line in the poem that best exemplifies each of these ideas.

Let's go through these ideas.

The first one, the speaker talks of someone that is loved, cherished and protected.

Second, the speaker found it difficult to say goodbye to her son.

Next, the speaker feels vulnerable whilst her son is at war.

Next, the speaker's son may have died at war.

And lastly, the speaker is mourning.

I want you to find a quote to best exemplify each of those ideas.

Pause the video and give it a go.

Let's go through some ideas now.

So the speaker talks to someone that is loved, cherished and protected.

You could have found the quote, "smoothed down your shirt's upturned collar." That line shows how the mother wants to look after her son and love him as if he is still a little boy.

And that proves that this young man, this soldier is loved, cherished, and protected.

The speaker found it difficult to say goodbye to her son.

We can see that when the mother says that she steeled the softening of her face.

This brings to mind the idea that the mother was very sad and wanted to cry potentially, but put on a brave face, shielded or covered all emotion and pretended that everything was fine.

The next idea, the speaker feels vulnerable whilst her son is at war.

You may have found the quote, "without a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf." The image of the mother without a coat or without a hat or without a scarf, could symbolise her vulnerability whilst her son is at war.

Because she's not protected against the harsh weather conditions.

And that could indeed reflect her vulnerability, her physical vulnerability could reflect her emotional vulnerability.

The next idea, the speaker's son may have died at war.

We've talked about this just now, but the dove pulling freely against the sky does evoke images of the son going to heaven.

And lastly, the speaker is mourning.

She says, "I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice." I think that this idea of wanting to hear someone's voice again and listening out for it could indeed reflect being, could indeed reflect grieving and the fact the mother is mourning.

The only thing she wants is to have a piece of her son back in her life.

Well done on completing that task and dealing with some really mature themes in today's lesson.

Here's what we've learned.

"Poppies" is from the collection "Exit Wounds" compiled by Poet Laureate Duffy, exploring lesser-recognized experiences of war.

Written from the perspective of a mother, Weir presents the quiet trauma of those who lose close relatives at war.

Her poem struck a nerve with many mothers who had lost their children during conflict.

And Weir is a textile designer and applied the technique of felt making to the poem to explore the deep process of grief.

Thank you for joining me in today's lesson.

I hope to see you in another one soon.