About the poems

In "A Photograph of Me," the drowned woman's presence, though submerged and blurred, undeniably haunts the seemingly peaceful landscape of the photograph. The past event of her drowning shapes how we interpret the present image.

Similarly, "Punishment" directly confronts a past act of violence, using the preserved body as a stark reminder of historical brutality. Heaney then connects this past act to the contemporary violence of the Troubles, showing how the echoes of the past resonate in the present.

Both poems, in their distinct ways, demonstrate how the past is not easily erased or forgotten. It leaves its mark, whether as a haunting absence in Atwood's poem or a brutal precedent in Heaney's, shaping our understanding of the present moment and the human condition.