War Photographer

War Photographer

The broad description of this poem would be about a photographer,

taking pictures of scenes in the war. Judging from the language and

phrases used , the pictures are not particularly nice ones. The writer

is describing a photographer - the photographer is not writing about

himself.

The first stanza is the introducing stanza. The writer is describing

the photographer as "finally alone", meaning that , after he has been

taking pictures of the war, while seeing everyone, he can now sit in

his darkroom (a room where photographs are processed) almost isolated

from the outside world, and ready to look at the developing cold,

gruesome photographs that he has taken. In the second line of the

first stanza , the writer is said to quote: "with spools of suffering

set out in ordered rows". The words "spools of suffering" suggest to

me that the photographs are nasty and horrid and maybe even

traumatising! "In ordered rows" are the pictures being laid out in

rows. The next line: "the only light is red and softly glows" suggests

to me that there was danger (hence the red - red shows danger:

violence, death). But another way of looking at the line is the fact

that the red is the light to prevent anyone coming in the darkroom

while the photographs are in the stage of processing. "As though this

were a church and he a priest preparing to intone a mass". Here the

writer is making a comparison to a priest. "Belfast. Beirut. Phnom

Penh . The writer is telling of all the places the photographer has

been , and he is emphasising that there was violence in many different

parts of the world at that time of the war. And the phrase, "All flesh

is grass" can be inverted to make: "All grass is flesh", and then we
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black-and-white is what I, the reader, can see . Here, the writer uses

a contrast of images to show that this is the covered-up version of

what the public sees to be war. "From which his editor will pick out

five or six for Sunday's supplement" shows that the photographer works

for the paper. "From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where he

earns his living and they do not care."The writer uses the word

"impassively" to show that he has no emotion and is quite reserved.

The writer says that they do not care that this photographer is taking

pictures. I think the writer says that they do not care, because the

writer refers to "they" as the editors, and the editors have other

things to concentrate on as well. Also, I think that the pictures

being taken are not "touching" the public (including the editors) as

the way the photographer may have liked.