Analysis of War Photographer

Before we begin, there was a method for not posting this until the night before class. I was hoping you would take the onus unto yourselves and begin revising and annotating without my help. After all, we have done some annotating as a class, I had assumed that you would have been prepared to do it on your own. That said, it appears we have more work to do with annotating! Keep in mind, you are comparing War Photographer and Remains. There are some obvious connections between the two poems (war, duh), but try to spot the smaller details, things that would take a more critical and insightful view to realise (aka how to get a better mark 😊).
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"In his darkroom he is finally alone/with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows"
Ahh, the stanza we have visited as a class what must be close to a thousand times. I think I repeated this line at least ten times (if your GCSE is on this poem and this quote is not in your memory, I will have failed you). You will notice that for this stanza, my annotations are different from the ones we did in class (I lost my book, definitely a good role model here). Anyways! We have established that a darkroom is where a photographer goes to develop their photos. The presence of light ruins the photograph. There is a lot to be said about this. Perhaps the art of being a war photographer means you need to see the darkness, that having an optimistic and light personality will not allow you to see the full realities of war. Being alone allows the photographer to reflect on what he has seen and photographed. In the second line, we spent loads of time talking about the alliteration but we did not spend time on "ordered rows". With these words, the photographer is trivialising the suffering. The suffering of the victims in his photographs are not important. "Ordered rows" also refers to military graves.
"The only light is red and softly glows,/as though this were a church and he/a priest preparing to intone a Mass."
The fact that the light is red can be a symbol of a few different things. The first being obvious. Thinking about our conversation on connotations, we realise that red is a symbol of blood. When we think of blood we think of war. The photographer refers to himself as a priest. The priest is the person in charge of Christian religious ceremonies and church services. He is considered the "voice of God". Intone here means to recite in song, monotone. Think ritualistic chanting. (Remember our conversation of the religious undertones present in this poem??)
"Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass."
That last sentence is perhaps my favourite within this poem. We'll get there though.
The poet uses the rule of three here to draw effect to the names of places of war. It also has the aggressive sounds that we associate with war. "All flesh is grass." This is a quote from the Bible. Does grass stay forever? Does a single blade of grass withstand nature's course and survive the harsh winters? No. Life, much like grass, is temporary.
"He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays/beneath his hands, which did not tremble then/though seem to now. Rural England. Home again" 
The first few sentences of this stanza are monosyllabic. This means the majority of the words contain one syllable. This monosyllabic sound shows that the photographer is detached from human emotions. This is heavily juxtaposed with the first stanza. It's as if the photographer is not recognizing the human behind the photos. When we get to "Rural England" and such, we see the breaking of the sentences. Short, snappy sentences to get your attention but to also show the sort of state of mind the photographer is in. When someone is talking in short sentences, their mind is usually frantic with all of their ideas trying to escape at once. They have so much to say but perhaps only a short period. Hmmmm..................................
"to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,/to fields which don't explode beneath the feet/of running children in nightmare heat."
The poet is also trying to draw our attention to the fact that the problems we face here are not real problems. They are so small (#firstworldproblems) compared to the hardships faced in war. The poet is again using juxtaposition to compare home to war. She is also linking the soldiers to the children, but children are a symbol of innocence. What does this mean?
"Something is happening. A stranger's features/faintly start to twist before his eyes,/a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries" 
Within these lines, the reader is zooming in on one person. The features starting to twist could suggest pain or perhaps the image is becoming clearer. The poet uses "half-formed ghost" to be ambiguous. As a photo clears, people can look like ghosts. However, this could also be referencing the dead man in the photograph. The photographer is remembering the memory.
"of this man's wife, how he sought approval/without words to do what someone must/and how the blood stained into foreign dust."
To recall a memory so vividly, it must have affected the photographer very strongly. By seeking approval without words, we can assume that maybe they don't speak the same language. However, the photographer could also be using body language to say what words are failing to do. To photograph someone in their last moments is a sensitive subject. At what point does this become wrong? How do you photograph a person dying only to be told by your editor that the photo is not emotional enough to be put in the paper? (These are the questions that keep me up at night.)
"A hundred agonies in black-and-white/from which his editor will pick out five or six/for Sunday's supplement. The reader's eyeballs prick"
The public is only seeing what the editor deems worthy. This raises the question: who is in control of the media? Why are we letting someone else decide what we can and cannot see? If the images are too brutal for the public to handle, does that not mean war is too brutal? If that's the case, why have war in the first place? I have a lot of questions...
"with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers./From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where/he earns his living and they do not care."
The start of the last line is an echo of line 7. Remember? "He has a job to do"? He is earning his living as if this were a chore for him to do.
Who is they?

SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!

As promised, here are the annotations. I took the photos with my iPad, so hopefully it's not as blurry as usual. Nah, it's just as blurry. Turns out I have shaky hands.

Happy revising, kiddos :)