As promised, here are the fifteen threads – one for each of the poems in the Power and Conflict cluster – that we wrote over the last couple of months.

Over 40,000 words in total, I think, so you might want to make yourself a cup of tea before diving in ... Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'Ozymandias':

https://twitter.com/massolit/status/1617912899254784000

Okay, time for our final thread on the ‘Power and Conflict’ poems.

This time, we’ll be looking at John Agard’s ‘Checking Out Me History’.

In particular, we’ll be thinking about the power – and limitations – of formal education.

🧵 First up, some context.

‘Checking Out Me History’ was published in 2007 by the poet John Agard.

Okay, time for our penultimate thread on the poems in the Power and Conflict cluster. This time, we’ll be talking about Beatrice Garland’s Kamikaze.

In particular, I want to think about cultural relativism and (once again) the power of nature in war poetry.

🧵 CW: This thread will include quite a lot about how different cultures view suicide and self-sacrifice, including Japanese culture, ancient Greek and Roman culture, and within Christianity.

Right, time for our next thread on the poetry in the Power and Conflict cluster. This time, we are thinking about Carol Rumens’ ‘The Emigrée’.

This time, I’m going to go through the poem sentence by sentence, and think about its ‘blurriness’.

🧵 First up, some context.

‘The Émigrée’ first appeared in Rumens’ collection, Thinking of Skins, which was published in 1993.

Okay, let’s do another thread on the Power and Conflict poems. This time, we’ll be talking about Imtiaz Dharker’s ‘Tissue’ 🧻📚👷🏢

In particular, we focus on the power of paper and poetry, and the idea that some things are better if they *don’t* last.

🧵 First up, some context.

‘Tissue’ first appeared in ‘The Terrorist at my Table’, Dharker’s fourth collection of poetry, which was published in 2014.

‘Tissue’ is the very first poem in the collection.

Okay, time for our next thread in our ‘Power and Conflict’ series.

This time, we’ll be talking about Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’🧑📸

In particular, I want to think about the word "something" and the moral ambiguity of the poem.

🧵 First up, some context.

‘War Photographer’ appeared in Carol Ann Duffy’s first collection, Standing Female Nude, which was published in 1985.

Okay, time for our next ‘Power and Conflict’ thread. This time, we’ll be talking about Jane Weir’s ‘Poppies’ 🌺😔

In particular, I want to think about ‘Poppies’ as a poem in which different layers are flattened into one – like felt.

🧵 First of all, some context.

‘Poppies’ was written in response to a 2009 commission from Carol Ann Duffy.

Here’s Duffy talking about what prompted the commission:

Right, time for our next ‘Power and Conflict’ thread.

This time, we’ll be talking about Simon Armitage’s ‘Remains’ 🏦🔫

In particular, I want to talk about ‘Remains’ as a poem that is *about* the writing of war poetry.

🧵 First of all, some context.

‘Remains’ was first heard on a Channel 4 documentary film called ‘The Not Dead’, which aired in 2007.

Okay, time for our next thread in the ‘Power and Conflict’ series. This time, we’ll be looking at Ted Hughes’ ‘Bayonet Charge’ 🐇🪖

In particular, I want to think about ‘Bayonet Charge’ as a poem that threatens to collapse in on itself, as well as the symbolism of the hare.

🧵 First up, some context.

‘Bayonet Charge’ was written by Ted Hughes, and was published in his first collection, The Hawk in the Rain (1957).

(Remember that hawk. We’ll be returning to it a bit later.)

Okay, time for our next ‘Power and Conflict’ thread.

This time, we’ll be thinking about Seamus Heaney’s ‘Storm on the Island’ 🏝️⛈️

🧵 In particular, we’ll be thinking about what we gain when we consider ‘Storm on the Island’ in its original context, i.e. as one of thirty-four poems in Heaney’s first collection, Death of a Naturalist.

Okay, time for our next thread in our ‘Power and Conflict’ series. This time, we’ll be looking at Wilfred Owen’s Exposure 🪖🥶

In particular, we’ll be thinking about the power of war over poetry itself.

🧵 First of all, some context.

‘Exposure’ was written by Wilfred Owen, an English poet (with Welsh ancestry) who served (and died) in the First World War (1914-18).

Okay, time for our next thread on the ‘Power and Conflict’ poems.

This time, we’ll be talking about Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ 🔥🏇🏇🏇

In particular, we’ll be talking about representation (or ‘mimesis’) and the stylisation of war.

🧵 First up, some context.

The first version of ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ was written by Alfred Lord Tennyson in December 1854.

Tennyson was Poet Laureate at the time – he had been appointed in 1850 – and one of the famous poets in England.

Okay, time for our next thread on the ‘Power and Conflict’ poems. This time, we’ll be talking about Robert Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ 🖼️ 🤴

In particular, I want to think about power in terms of the ability to control where people are looking 👀

🧵 Before that, however, the basics:

‘My Last Duchess’ was written by Robert Browning (1812-89), one of the great poets of the Victorian era.

The poem first appeared in his collection ‘Dramatic Lyrics’, which was published in 1842.

Time for another ‘Power and Conflict’ thread. This time, we’ll be looking at the extract from ‘The Prelude’ by William Wordsworth ⛰🚣

This time, we’ll be thinking about the power of memory.

🧵 Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s introduce ‘The Prelude’ itself.

‘The Prelude’ was written by William Wordsworth, one of the great Romantic poets alongside Percy Shelley and William Blake, whose poems we have looked at in previous threads.

Okay, time for our second thread looking at the poems in the Power and Conflict cluster.

This time, we’ll be talking about William Blake’s ‘London’ 🎡💂🏼‍♂️🇬🇧

🧵 This time, I’ll be talking about some contexts that might not be immediately obvious, as well as the question of whether poetry has the power to make its reader *do* anything.

I’ll probably make a bunch of typos on the way.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing a thread on each of the ‘Power and Conflict’ poems that some of you will be reading for your English Literature GCSEs.

I can’t promise that they will be original or even very good, but … I’ll try by best!

First up: Ozymandias 🐫

🧵 First of all, the basics.

‘Ozymandias’ was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), one of the major Romantic poets who died tragically young following a boating accident in Italy.

I think it’s time for another Streetcar thread, don’t you?

This time, we’ll be thinking about what characters are wearing (or not wearing) in the play, focusing in particular on a single moment in Scene 3 👗👘👠

🧵 Before we start, I want to say something general about the difference between *reading* a play (in a book) and *watching* it (on stage).

Right, shall we talk a little more about Streetcar?

This time, I want to think about religious language and imagery in the play, and the various Biblical figures that are evoked in the play 👼👹

🧵 Before we start, however, a quick note about Blanche.

I think it’s fairly uncontroversial to say that Blanche occasionally presents herself in a way that is different from what she is actually like.

We might say that she affects to be a certain kind of person that she is not.

Shall we talk about Streetcar a little more?

This time, we’re going to think about the significance of the (sometimes subtle) differences between repeated episodes.

🧵 This is our third thread on repetition in Streetcar.

In the first, we argued that the repetition of the same actions by different characters creates the impression that everyone is the same, which in turn throws a spotlight on those characters who are “different”.

Alright, thread number four on A Streetcar Named Desire, and we're going to stick with the topic of repetition.

🧵 In our previous thread, we made the case that the similarity between different characters in the play, both named and unnamed, gives an impression that everyone in the French Quarter is the same.

Time for another Streetcar thread!

This time, we're going to talk about the repetitiveness of the play, and why it matters.

Why it matters. Why it matters.

🧵 Do you ever get a sense when reading Streetcar that you've heard that line before? Or seen that gesture?

If you have, you'd be right!

The play is full of little echoes, repetitions and resonances.