Summary
In the second stanza, the photographer focuses on his “job to do.” He is depicted as laying solutions in trays, which is another step in the process of developing pictures: after developing each reel in a tank of chemicals, the photographer rinses the reel in a tray full of cold water before hanging the film to let it dry. Duffy also reveals that the photographer’s darkroom is in rural England. It is implied that the photographer has grown up in England, or at least has lived there for a significant amount of time, as he refers to it as his “home.” He contrasts England with the war zones he has seen: while “simple weather” can alleviate “ordinary pain” in England, the war zones were characterized by exploding fields, “running children,” and a “nightmare heat.”
Analysis
The stark beginning sentence of the second stanza, “[h]e has a job to do,” emphasizes the photographer’s role at the center of the poem: he is snapping himself out of his reverie on the past war sites he has visited and attempting to address his emotional pain by reminding himself that he must complete his job. Despite this internal command, the photographer’s hands still “tremble,” although in the midst of the conflict itself he was able to keep them “steady,” presumably because he was able to compartmentalize and was also experiencing the shock of ongoing conflict which he is now processing more fully. In order to emphasize the photographer’s attempt to compartmentalize his trauma, Duffy writes that the photographer’s hands “seem to” tremble. This creates the image that the photographer is watching his own hands tremble, rather than being intuitively aware they are trembling. The photographer’s “job” refers both to the immediate task of developing the photographs and his broader job as a war photographer. In both the immediate and broader task, he struggles to contain his emotional investment and trauma from witnessing war. The language of the second stanza creates a verbal tug-of-war between obligations and emotion. While the photographer begins with a resolute belief that he “has a job to do,” the poem subsequently descends into a visceral and disturbing description of “exploding fields” and “running children in a nightmare heat.”
This stanza also describes the photographer’s experience of trauma, perhaps even depicting an instance of what would be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The solutions “slop” within the trays, which invokes memories that can barely be contained. The use of the word “solutions,” while referring literally to the mixture used to develop the photographs, also creates an implicit contrast to the massive problem of war, which the photographer cannot "solve" but only document. Duffy also creates the image that the photographer is watching his own hands tremble and is having an out-of-body experience—this is termed derealization, which is a symptom of trauma and PTSD. While these diction choices subtly introduce the theme of trauma, it is more fully explored in the final couplet of the stanza, which contrasts the idyllic rural England to the extreme chaos and pain of a war zone—“fields which…explode beneath the feet / of running children in a nightmare heat.” Due to his trauma, and implied diagnosable PTSD, the photographer cannot stay in the safety and solitude of his church-like studio, but is involuntarily and vividly transported into his horrifying memories. The use of the word “nightmare” emphasizes the involuntary and all-consuming nature of his reverie; like a sleeper finding themselves in a nightmare, the photographer is suddenly trapped in his memory. Finally, the placement of these lines as a rhyming couplet in the ABBCDD structure highlights this visceral memory through the natural emphasis created by the meter.
The reference to rural England serves two functions. It situates the reader in the setting of the poem and it establishes a dichotomy between a country in peacetime and an active war zone. The setting of “rural England” is familiar to Duffy’s likely British audience, since she is a British poet who went on to become the National Poet Laureate in 2009. This subtly invokes empathy in the audience, particularly when the photographer identifies England as his “home.” It also foreshadows the poem’s readers placing themselves in the position of the newspaper “reader” in the fourth stanza. Secondly, rural England serves as a foil to wartime countries, and particularly to the three cities that were referenced in the first stanza—“Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh.” This contrast with the first stanza is further established by the adjective “rural,” which connects with the reference to “grass” in the first stanza’s Biblical quote, “All flesh is grass.”
