Both ‘Poppies’ and ‘Kamikaze’ explore loss. In Poppies, Weir explores the loss that mothers feel when their children go off to war. She deliberately doesn’t mention one particular war, so that the experiences in the poem can apply to any war at any time. Weir makes the mother’s feelings of loss clear by writing ‘released a songbird from its cage’. Weir’s use of imagery helps the reader to imagine that the mother is having to open up a cage and release a vulnerable bird into the world. In this image, the bird symbolises her son and the cage symbolises the home they share together. It is clear that the mother is finding it very difficult letting her son go off to war, knowing that she may not see him again. In Kamikaze, the feelings of loss are different. When the father returns, he loses his family and they lose him, due to feeling that they must ignore him. This is linked to the honour of being sent on a Kamikaze mission and the shame that would have been felt if the pilot did not fulfil his duty to his country. Garland makes the children’s loss clear by writing ‘we too learned to be silent’. These words indicate that the children learn from their mother and neighbours that they must ignore their father, which means they lose their father and he loses them. Garland’s use of the word ‘learn’ is important as it indicates that they have been taught to ignore their father over a period of time. Garland’s use of the word ‘silent’ feels very cold because it encourages the reader to imagine that the father is completely ignored. It is clear in both poems that family members have suffered loss as a result of war.
Both poems explore sadness. Near the end of ‘Poppies’, Weir makes clear the mother misses her son by writing ‘hoping to hear your playground voice’. These words indicate that the mother has fond memories of her son as a child. Weir’s use of sound imagery in these words helps the reader to imagine the happy sounds of her son playing in the school playground. The imagery tells the reader how vivid the mother’s memories are of her son as a young child, and how difficult it must be for the mother knowing that she will never see her son again. Weir’s use of the word ‘hoping’ indicates that the mother is finding it difficult to let go of her son, and is hoping that one day she may hear his voice again. Similarly, Kamikaze ends with feelings of sadness. In the final line of the poem, Garland presents the speaker of the poem as regretful by writing ‘he must have wondered which had been the better way to die’. In other words Garland is suggesting that the father may have asked himself it would have been better to go through with the suicide mission because he was treated as if he was dead when he returned anyway. It is clear that the children will always look back on the way they treated their father feeling regret and sadness because they treated him as if he were dead.
Both poems explore struggle. In ‘Poppies’ Weir makes clear the mother struggles to say goodbye to her son on the day he leaves by writing ‘I was brave’. These words indicate that the mother is forced to appear brave when saying goodbye to her son, due to not wanting him to feel any guilt about leaving. Weir’s use of these words helps the reader to imagine all families who have been in this situation, having to wave goodbye to a family member going to war. We imagine how they would struggle knowing that this family member will be in great danger, and may never return alive. It is clear that war forces all people to be brave - not just the soldiers fighting. The struggle in Kamikaze is different. In Kamikaze, Garland explores the pilot’s struggle when he has to choose between his country and his family. Garland implies that, while the pilot is flying towards the enemy ship, he looks down at the water and sees fishing boats that remind him of his ‘father’s boat’. This brings back memories of days he spent fishing with his father and brothers. Garland implies that these memories encourage the pilot to turn his plane around because he realises that he does not want to lose his family. Garland is clear that she is not writing about a real Kamikaze pilot’s experience, but that she wanted to use her poem to imagine the struggle that young Kamikaze pilots would have gone through in this situation. It is clear in both poems that both the people fighting, and the families, struggle in war.