For this activity, you will need to turn to the poem 'Poppies' by Jane Weir and 'War Photographer' by Carol Anne Duffy. Both poems can be found in the Power and Conflict section of your anthology.

Both poems contain powerful emotions, but what links them the most is that they are both told from the perspective of someone not involved in the fighting, but still facing the consequences of it.

The main themes running throughout the poems are grief, war, loss, memory, childhood, innocence and adulthood.

In the following questions, you will compare and evaluate the ideas expressed in both poems.

You should always refer to your own text when working through these examples. These quotations are for reference only.