Mametz Wood - Owen Sheers

Attachments:

• next to of course god america i - E.E.Cummings
• Flag - John Agard
• Extract from Out of the Blue - Simon Armitage
• The Yellow Palm - Robert Minhinnick
• Poppies - Jane Weir
• Futility - Wilfred Owen
• Belfast Confetti - Ciaran Carson

1. Language
   1. Imagery
      1. 'a broken mosaic of bone linked arm in arm'
         1. They all died together 'arm in arm'
         2. Found buried in pieces
      2. 'in boots that outlasted them'
         1. The boots didn't decompose like them
         2. Suggests the youth of the soldiers
      3. 'the wasted young'
         1. 'wasted' life
         2. Decomposing
            1. Wasting away
         3. Youth of soldiers
      4. 'and their jaws, those that have them, dropped open'
         1. Jaws have been blown off
            1. Dropped open in shock
         2. Open because they were singing
            1. 'As if the notes they had sung'
2. Title
   1. Place where the bloody battle took place
3. Subject and Themes
   1. About a fight that took place during the First World War
      1. Took place 7th-12th July 1916
      2. German Vs. Welsh
         1. Welsh won but many died
      3. Unfair fight
         1. Bayonets against machine guns
4. Comparison
   1. The Charge of the Light Brigade
      1. Unfair fight
5. Poetic Techniques
   1. Metaphor
      1. 'the china plate of a shoulder blade'
         1. 'China plate' is a familiar object, to illustrate what is usually hidden, 'shoulder blade'
         2. Making the shoulder blades seem easy to brake
      2. 'broken bird's egg of a skull'
         1. Egg shells are fragile and easily broken
            1. Suggests the vulnerability of the Welsh soldiers
         2. 'its nesting machine guns' extends the bird/egg metaphor
            1. Germans safe in nests
               1. Waiting for Welsh
   2. Simile
      1. 'like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin'
         1. Forcing the bodies/remains out because they don't belong in the earth
   3. Personification
      1. 'the earth stands sentinel'
6. Form and Structure
   1. Seven stanzas
      1. All are three-line stanzas