Mametz Wood Essay

‘Mametz Wood’ is a remarkable ‘conflict and war themed’ poem written by Welsh-born poet Owen Sheers. Inspired by a visit to the battlefield on the 85th anniversary of the battle of Somme, it explores in depth themes, ideas and issues of: death, conflict, loss, remembrance, suffering, destruction and consequences. The poet explores how ‘the wasted young’ fought for their country, sacrificing and risking their livelihoods’ in the hope of coming home as heroes more than zeroes, however are left forgotten, without even proper graves. Many years later, the remains are found ‘a broken mosaic of bone linked arm in arm’ by some farmers.

‘Disabled’ is a very emotional piece of poetic literature, this is a very heart-touching poem, giving a personal view on how life changes when you’re disabled, relying on everything but yourself. The poet explores how dissimilar and incomprehensive life has become for himself living without some limbs.
Furthermore, I will develop on this by commenting on the authors’ variety of: speech, content, context, language, text, form and structure, imagery and literary techniques. Language portrays a foremost role within both poems, it brings a deeper understanding within the reader, powerfully influencing the way the reader perceives the piece of literary text, in some ways it shapes the readers thoughts. Evoking, many connotations, this enables the reader to form their own point of view. Language is one of the strongest linguistic techniques, along with Author’s technique/skills and structure/form. Speaking of language, language is the thing I would like to focus upon, as this has a leading impression on the effectiveness of the poems.

In ‘Disabled’, there are several stanzas, lines, phrases and words, in which place powerful concepts illustrating the ill effects of