Analysis

 War Photographer – Published in 1985

 Difficult decision she has to make in the pictures in the darkroom for the
certain war photographs, darkroom = take a roll of film, any filmexposed to
light would ruin the picture and the film in the solution and develelop the
picture and gradually appear in front of you.
 More interested in the photographer – dilemma of someone who has that as a
job to these places and come back with the images.
 THEME: The impossibility of true horrors of conflict and war
 The photographs express the war but the people refuse to accept the reality
of the war.

Poem Analysis
 Stanza 1 = the war photographer is finally alone in his darkroom coming
home from his trip and from the different places he has come
 Stanza 2 = Is beginning to develop the pictures and the contrast to the rural
England he comes back to and he the war zone
 Stanza 3 = picture is slowly to develop, reminding of the man to death and
cries of the man’s wife.
 Stanza 4 = people will for a moment remember the war then forget the war
as he goes back to do it again.

Controlled syntax = juxtaposition and the contrast the need of what we see and
think of war and the reality of war that’s impossible. The unchanging structure and
the war photographer’s efforts are futile trying to reveal the realities of war.
Sudden stop in the Rural England separated from the description for the warzone. 4
stanzas, 6 lines per stanza. Structurally there is order but thematically there is
chaos.

The pauses and full blast gun fire forces us to stop and think about the countries.

Cyclical structure it ends where it starts so at first he is finally alone and then he
leaves to do this again. This fateful futility, trying to make an impact but people are
sanitizing and carrying on structured lives.

Language:
 Dark room, red light = sinister and evil connotations contrast
 greatly and the religious imagery of church and mass
 Trying to make order out of which is chaotic.
  Ordered rows which are war graves = which is ironic because war is chaotic
 They do not care = who’s he referring to
o Ambiguity  the public who look at these pictures
o Is it the wider world who’s apathetic suffering
o Is it us who read the poem who quickly move on and forget.

Futility to express horrors of conflict because people don’t accept it.

Could "eyeballs prick with tears" the word "tears" mean as in to tear something up, like how
in many wars, soldiers are torn limb from limb. Perhaps this is an ambiguous phrase to yet
again show how people differentiate what is real, from what they would like to hear; of course
there is sympathy in "tears" but the permanent damage of a "tear" could represent the
photographers permanently damaged mental state.

An interpretation that I can gather from the structure of the poem is that since this entire
poem is cyclical, it shows how the war photographer is most heartedly acquainted with those
feelings of sorrow and dispair that the emotions now fail to have an effect on him anymore.
He has too become of those people who gaze at the war photos trying to gain a deeper
meaning from them but fail to really see war in its true bloody form. So this shows how war is
unable to be captured in photos, in this 4×6 photo of a poem if you must, no matter how long
the cycle goes on for.

Also comparing the photographer to a “priest preparing to intone a mass” may suggest how he is trying to
spread something which is hard to believe. To citizens, it is hard to understand the harsh reality of war
without experiencing it akin to Christians trying to understand the nature of God (as he is transcendent),
even with help of a representative of God. Furthermore, due to the falling attendance in churches in the uk,
Duffy may also imply that less and less people are interested in the work or things that the photographer
conveys as time goes on.

 With spools of suffering set ouf in ordered rows = ordered reinforced by the imposed structure of
the sounds of that line pronounced
 The only light is red and softly glows = imposes a light that softly glows the diminutions that are
usually set with fire that are horrific.

 All flesh is grass is the representative is the alliteration of Isaiah 40:6

 Solutions = dark room or that refer to war but the way its handled means that
it’s not done with care.
 Rural England where children would run in field, but children’s innocence would
end up in horror.
 A stranger’s strangely start to twist = controtion of pain, image gradually forming
but contrast half form death
 Hundred agonies = black/white – good/evil – truth/falsehood
 Picking out 5/6 can’t possibly express the war – demeans and trivializes
o Entertainment where they do not care.

It’s through the lens of these silenced groups that provides a different
reality of a war. A reality that is unable to be captured in the ever so
encompassing nature of the war that Duffy is trying to encapsulate here from
the casualties as there is just as the cyclical structure states there is fateful
just as the silenced photographer comes into the darkroom, the
photographer just as quickly goes back out to repeat hopeless again. It’s the
stark juxtaposing contrast of “a hundred agonies in black and white from
which his editor will pict out five or six…reader’s…he stares impassively at
where he earns his living and they do not care”…(line ___ last stanza) ..”he has
a job to do..”“solutions..slop in trays” (line___second stanza) representative of
the literal chemical solution in the darkroom and the treatment of the a
hopeless solution there is to war because there is none as it is heartless job
as the photographer is in a demeaning and trivializing position to pick out a
mere five or 6 photos for the majority that “do not care.”