Kamikaze by Beatrix Garland: what it is about, its context, and how Garland uses language, form and structure.
Key quotations and how to analyse them, and the poems in the cluster it compares well with, with similarities and differences.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'Her father embarked at sunrise', 'a shaven head / full of powerful incantations', 'the dark shoals of fishes / flashing silver as their bellies', 'strung out like bunting', 'my mother never spoke again / in his presence', 'we too learned / to be silent', 'he must have wondered / which had been the better way to die'.
Form: a story told at second hand, the move from 'she' to 'we', and the italic final stanza.
Context: Japan's kamikaze pilots in the Second World War, and the shame of turning back.
Comparisons with Poppies, The Émigrée and Remains.
