6R's war poetry

In Year 6 we have been immersing ourselves in our topic for this term, the First World War. Having studied some images of battles and battlefields, and read and analysed a range of war poetry, 6R had a go at writing our own. Our first poem was created by taking ideas, words and phrases from different pairs of children and fitting these together: something of a patchwork poem! It is a descriptive poem about the battlefields post-war, in which we focussed on using personification effectively. Our second poem is more of a 'jigsaw' poem, about a battlefield before, during and after the war. The class was divided into groups, each of which wrote one stanza with a particular focus in terms of the effect on the reader. Can you work out what each group's aim was? In addition, we would love your ideas for titles!


Jet-black larks, once bringers of hope, swirl above the now-silent land.
Poppies of blood gaze mournfully at the tempestuous sky,
No longer filled with the poison of the conflict below.
They stand guard - sorrowfully, faithfully - where soldiers fell.
Bending in the whistling wind, the blood-red glow kisses the graves
Of Flanders: the final resting place of too many lost ones,
Paying its respects,
Weeping as quietly as a dead man's final breath,
To the fallen heroes.





A cloak of silence swathes the solitary field,

Desolate hearts fear for the future;

Fear the destruction about to be witnessed.

Guns are being loaded

To penetrate souls.

BANG! "To your positions!"

Squabbling soldiers heave themselves over the door to death

As ominous clouds unleash a crash of thunder

Over the squalid, squelching battlefield.

 

"Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!"

Too late:

Soldiers writhe in agony,

Bitter froth spurts from their hanging mouths

As they utter their final, desperate words,

Engulfed in a misty, green sea.

 

Soldiers sent with a destiny of death

Is it sweet to die on strange soil?

Is it fitting to die in pain?

Innocent children sent to the slaughter

Men with mothers, wives and sons

Will never see the light of day again.

 

Crumpled, torn poppies litter

The obliterated field of despair.

Larks, once bringers of hope, circle the serene sky

Waiting, watching, for the next wave of death.

Blood filled, the poppies kiss the putrid mud,

Each torn stem holds an untold story

Of the Great War, in Flanders Fields.