Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1955. She graduated from Liverpool University in 1977 with a degree in Philosophy. She began writing poetry in primary school (elementary school), and continued to throughout the rest of her life. She worked for The Guardian’s poetry critic in the late 1980s, and also for a poetry magazine in the mid 1990s. Queen Elizabeth II appointed Duffy as the British Poet Laureate in 2009 on a ten-year term. In 1985, she published a poetry collection title “Standing Female Nude,” with one of the poems in the collection titled “War Photographer.” In this poem, Carol Ann Duffy uses imagery to illustrate how people ignore things that do not affect them.
There are clearly problems with the war described in the poem. As Duffy establishes the setting, she depicts “spools of suffering set out in ordered rows” (Duffy 2). This quote’s imagery projects a depressing mood, and it makes the reader feel sorry for those depicted in the photos. It makes one feel as if they want to help the people, albeit fictional. Duffy also depicts the viewer of the photograph “from the aeroplane [staring] impassively” (Duffy 23). The plane invokes imagery of heights and the feeling of being above everybody else. The reader is not only above normal people, but they are also above the war and all the horrors of it. Many people prefer not knowing about the details of a bloody war, so they will choose to fly above it and be uninformed about the problems they face. The war photographs invoke imagery of suffering and depression, and since there is so much of it, it makes it impossible for people to focus on a single problem. …show more content…
The war photographer send all of his photos to the newspaper editor, in which “his editor will pick out five or six” (Duffy 19-20). The “100 agonies in black and white” invoke imagery of different photos all of the war (Duffy 19-20). The newspaper editor, as depicted, glosses over them and chooses his five or six quickly. The editor is also a representative for the people. There are so many photos of undesirable situations that the editor has no time or energy to study each one carefully. Instead he simply chooses a few that look good and the rest of them are tossed into the archives where they will be studied deeply once or twice every decade or two. The few selected photos will be used “for Sunday’s supplement,” which is for a newspaper article (Duffy 21). It implements imagery of a black and white document. A supplement, by definition, is not a main idea, but something minor that adds to something else. No imagery of a front page article with a big headline is initiated Instead, it creates imagery of a side story or a small thing shrouded by something larger, perhaps a big scandal on the front page. This represents people pushing aside pressing problems in order to see more of things that they like. The photographs are unknown to the people, so since they are unaffected by it, they ignore it. As the poem progresses, “a stranger’s features faintly start to twist (Duffy 13-14). As the reader reads this line an image of somebody perhaps with blurry face appears the surgery is used to illustrate the person in the photograph is another nameless face. The person viewing the photo does not have a
There are clearly problems with the war described in the poem. As Duffy establishes the setting, she depicts “spools of suffering set out in ordered rows” (Duffy 2). This quote’s imagery projects a depressing mood, and it makes the reader feel sorry for those depicted in the photos. It makes one feel as if they want to help the people, albeit fictional. Duffy also depicts the viewer of the photograph “from the aeroplane [staring] impassively” (Duffy 23). The plane invokes imagery of heights and the feeling of being above everybody else. The reader is not only above normal people, but they are also above the war and all the horrors of it. Many people prefer not knowing about the details of a bloody war, so they will choose to fly above it and be uninformed about the problems they face. The war photographs invoke imagery of suffering and depression, and since there is so much of it, it makes it impossible for people to focus on a single problem. …show more content…
The war photographer send all of his photos to the newspaper editor, in which “his editor will pick out five or six” (Duffy 19-20). The “100 agonies in black and white” invoke imagery of different photos all of the war (Duffy 19-20). The newspaper editor, as depicted, glosses over them and chooses his five or six quickly. The editor is also a representative for the people. There are so many photos of undesirable situations that the editor has no time or energy to study each one carefully. Instead he simply chooses a few that look good and the rest of them are tossed into the archives where they will be studied deeply once or twice every decade or two. The few selected photos will be used “for Sunday’s supplement,” which is for a newspaper article (Duffy 21). It implements imagery of a black and white document. A supplement, by definition, is not a main idea, but something minor that adds to something else. No imagery of a front page article with a big headline is initiated Instead, it creates imagery of a side story or a small thing shrouded by something larger, perhaps a big scandal on the front page. This represents people pushing aside pressing problems in order to see more of things that they like. The photographs are unknown to the people, so since they are unaffected by it, they ignore it. As the poem progresses, “a stranger’s features faintly start to twist (Duffy 13-14). As the reader reads this line an image of somebody perhaps with blurry face appears the surgery is used to illustrate the person in the photograph is another nameless face. The person viewing the photo does not have a