CONTEXT - The imagery in line 12 seems to
reinforce a famous photo by another war
photographer Nick Ut. He took a photo of
a nine-year old during the Vietnam War.
She was running naked towards the
camera in extreme pain - her village was
hit by a napalm bomb.
FORM
The poem has 4 stanzas of equal length
and a regular rhyme scheme.
It is "set out in ordered rows" like
the photographer's spools, echoing
the care that the photographer
takes over his work.
The use of enjambment
reflects the gradual revealing
of the photo as it develops.
STRUCTURE
The poem follows the actions and thoughts
of the photographer in his darkroom.
There's a distinct change
at the start of the third
stanza, when the
photographer
remembers a specific
death.
In the final stanza, the focus shifts to
the way the photographer's work is
percieved.
LANGUAGE
Religious Imagery
The references to religion make it
sound almost as if the photographer
is a priest conducting a funeral when
he's developing the photos - there's a
sense of ceremony to his actions.
"All flesh is grass"
"a priest preparing to intone a Mass"
Contrasts
The poem presents "Rural England"
as a contrast to the war zones
the photographer visits.
"From the aeroplane"
The grieving widow is
compared with people in
England whose eyes only
"prick / with tears" at the
pain.
"prick/ with tears"
Ironically, the photographer is detached in the war
zones but deeply affected at home.
"his hands, which did not tremble then"
Emotive Language
The poem is full of powerful, emotive imagery which reflect the horrors
of war seen by the photographer and captured in her photos.
"A hundred agonies in black and white"
"blood stained into foreign dust"
Like the photographer, Duffy tries
to represent the horror of conflict
in her work in order to make the
reader think about the subject