War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy

How does Duffy incite us to consider the state of humanity in her poem
‘War Photographer’?
 War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy
1 In his darkroom he is finally alone
2 with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
3 The only light is red and softly glows,
4 as though this were a church and he
5 a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
6 Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.

7 He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays

8 beneath his hands, which did not tremble then
9 though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
10 to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
11 to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
12 of running children in a nightmare heat.

13 Something is happening. A stranger’s features

14 faintly start to twist before his eyes,
15 a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
16 of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
17 without words to do what someone must
18 and how the blood stained into foreign dust.

19 A hundred agonies in black and white

20 from which his editor will pick out five or six
21 for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick
22 with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
23 From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
24 he earns his living and they do not care.
 How does Duffy incite us to consider the state of humanity in her
poem ‘War Photographer’?

How does Duffy convey the experience of the photographer to

evoke a more empathetic understanding of war?
How does she present the recipients of the photographs?
Do we feel sympathy for the photographer? How might
Duffy’s relationship with Don McCullin have influenced the
way in which she presents the photographer?
What particular language choice from Duffy stands out for
you?
What do you think of the way in which the poem is structured?
 P – point
Harkness discussion E – draws upon
evidence
D – develops
A F someone’s point
C – contests
someone’s point
B E Q – asks a question

Those on the outside

need to fill in the
harkness discussion
C D sheet at the back of
the booklet.
War Photographer by
Carol Ann Duffy

How does Duffy incite us

to consider the state of
humanity in her poem
‘War Photographer’?

Personal response