This key facts covers 📋 Fast Facts within Kamikaze (Garland) for GCSE English Literature. Revise Kamikaze (Garland) in Power and Conflict Poetry for GCSE English Literature with 10 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This topic appears regularly enough that it should still be part of a steady revision cycle. It is section 14 of 19 in this topic. Use this key facts to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
📋 Fast Facts
- Written by Beatrice Garland; published in 2013 in her collection The Invention of Fireworks
- The poem is written in free verse: no regular rhyme scheme, lines of varying length — a formal choice that mirrors the pilot’s deviation from his ordered mission
- Kamikaze pilots were Japanese military flyers who flew suicide missions in the Second World War (1939-1945), targeting Allied warships
- “Kamikaze” means “divine wind” in Japanese — named after legendary storms that destroyed Mongol invasion fleets in the 13th century
- The poem uses italics for the closing stanza to mark the daughter’s direct first-person voice — a structural device visible on the page
- The poem is part of the AQA Power and Conflict anthology (Paper 2 Section B); it is one of the anthology’s most commonly named poems on questions about conflict’s human cost
Practice questions for Kamikaze (Garland)
In *Kamikaze*, why does the pilot's act of turning back from his mission represent a form of **cultural transgression**?
How does Garland use **narrative structure** in *Kamikaze* to present the pilot's experience as mediated and silenced? [2 marks]