# data[].attributes.headline
The Falling Leaves - Margaret Postgate Cole

# data[].attributes.subject
The Falling Leaves - Margaret Postgate Cole

# data[].attributes.body
1. Read the poem on your own first. Give everyone in the group time to read it carefully. Take your time to read it twice.

2.  Discuss the poem in your group. What are your impressions of it? How did it make you feel? What is the story behind it?

3. One person types up at least 5 bullet points of notes about your discussion into your group's column

4. Refer to the SSPLLATT sheet in your booklet. Use it to structure a your annotations.

5. Take pictures of your annotations and upload them to your column.

4. Each of you needs to then choose a quotation from the poem and fill out the onion worksheet.

# data[].attributes.body
He repeats the word England or english 6 times which emphasises the venerability of the english soldiers in particular and how they didn't sign up for war but were forced.
He says about how soldiers shouldn't die so young and how death is calm against the horrors and chaos of war
He references heaven which shows how these young me have done a good thing for their country and they are now at peace above. “”In hearts at peace, under an english heaven”
The poem has 10 syllables per line
The first stanza is made up of end rhyme but the second stanza changes and doesn't rhyme as clearly as the first and is an A, B, C, A, B, C. This rhyme scene makes the stanza seem less rigid
The words and tones he uses aren't has harsh as many other poems of the time and he uses calm soft words to talk about the peacefulness of death.
His death despite on foreign soil has made england stronger and even improved the field he lies in, bringing a piece of england. The poem is very patriotic and also has a strong religious connotation.
There is a caesura in the line “that is for ever england. There shall be” this makes the sentence stronger and how those who have fallen will never leave England.
In the two stanzas there is a stark difference in the language. The first stanza is about when you first are killed in battle and the second stanza leans more to how the soldiers travel to heaven and let go of the pain of war.

# data[].attributes.body
Quite sad, but uses positive language, eg. Sweet, bright, golden, rich delight
ABAB rhyme scheme
In You, the y is capitalised to show great importance
Bereft has a double meaning - lacking something and being sad, especially after a death
Last sentence of each stanza contrast the rest in being hopeless and dark
This person’s death was ‘long ago’, but still seems fresh
4 stanzas of 4 lines, last one is quite different to the rest
‘Time’ is capitalised to show, again, significance: Time is going slowly for her
The words perhaps and You are repeated
The first three paragraphs are hopeful, but the last has barely any hope, perhaps this conveys the feelings people towards war over time

# data[].attributes.body
-inconsistent rhyme scheme, not quite right
-at the end of the first line of each stanza there is a pause
-he includes 3 rhetorical questions in the last stanza
-changes tone from first to second stanza
-mournful and sad
-tranquil, calm
-so much shorter than dulce eat decorum est and others by Wilfred Owen
-inconsistent syllables, not quite right
-no rhythm, hard to say
—hard for him to say, he’s so sad?
-abrupt endings
-empty tone, the writer is lost
-vague statement
-expressing Owen’s feelings,
-a completely irregular poem
- he has given up
-keeps referring to a ‘him’/‘he’, can’t say his name
-doesn’t have an audience
-personifies the sun
-mourning the death of a friend
-something is not right, his friend should wake up but he isn’t
-it always works but it isn’t working now
-his friend died from the cold, he’s trying to thaw him with the sun but it isn’t working
-like stages of grief- sad, (futility), angry (dulce et decorum est)

# data[].attributes.body
References to the game - Jessie pope

Lied about his age to get into the army

Lost his leg

Removed from the army - discharged

No one cheered him on his way home

Only one man thanked him for his service and gave him something

Statement

Telling people about the life changing effects of being in war

Speaker

Wilfred owen

About a wounded soldier

3rd person

Purpose

Warn people about lying to go to war

Warn people about going to war and the high risk

Language

visceral imagery ‘leap of purple spurted from his thigh’

Pride and royalty associated with purple

Tone

Sad

Regretful

Pride at the start

’To please his meg’

Society pressures to go to war to please the women

‘He’d look a god in kilts’

The uniform

# data[].attributes.body
There is no definite rhyme pattern because the endings are half rhymes. There isn’t end rhyme and it isn’t a rondeu

Uses iambic pentameter which shows the rhythm, and give the effect on it being quite dark and give a stone which makes it seem very similar and familiar as there is no exclamation marks and more commas, and colons. Shows a dreamy effect, of a vision which Owen is having.

Dark, talks about hell and death which gives the effect of sadness and war was like. Sad horrible words and adjectives. ‘Jabbed’ , ‘Killed’

The story is Wilfred Owen coming from battle, he goes down a tunnel and he finds a dead person, but has a vision that the dead person tells him about his life, and how stupid the war is. The dead person was someone that Wilfred Owen killed, that may have been on his side. ‘I am the enemy you killed my friend’ the juxtaposition of enemy and friend. Ties with Siegfried Sassoon’s poem

Shows how war seems to be a normal everyday hobby/habit.

# data[].attributes.body
The structure and language of the poem:

Flemish: Language spoken in Belgium, related to the war.
Snowflakes and leaves: a peaceful poem
Rhyme scheme: ABCABC
Line length: Long line followed by short line inhe beginning but slowly evens out.
Falling leaves as a metaphor: they are falling into a pile of dead leaves, referring to the soldiers
Their identity is ignored, they are just ‘leaves’
Fall like snowflakes: a silent death, a very heroic death?
They did not die because of disease but because they were fighting for their country.
The war as ‘beauty strewed’. They (the dead bodies) were scattered like snowflakes on the battle field.
As more and more soldiers/leaves are dying they because less and less recognisable.

The tone and emotions of the poem:

When we first read it we thought it was a beautiful poem about autumn. But then we realised there was a hidden meaning about losing ideantity and death in the poem. It becomes clear that it is about the war when we read ‘Slain by no wind of age or pestilence.’
The poem gives a feeling of sadness and solitude.
The tone is calm and composed also very subtle reference to the war.
This poem is not as violent as the other war poems by male poets but this gives the reader a sense that the poet was writing from home. Margret Cole explores war poetry from a different perspective.