ask yourself: who? what? where? when? why? what is the ... · imagery and techniques: organisation:...

About:

• Ask yourself: Who? What? Where? When? Why?

• What is the relevance of the title?

• Whose point of view do we hear?

Historical/Social context

• Does AQA give you any clues in the rubric?

• What might have been happening at the time of the poet’s writing?

Imagery and Techniques

• What type of words/techniques are used?

• Are any words/techniques repeated or emphasised?

• Pick out two or three words/techniques that you think are important and write about them. What

mood do they create?

• How do they help to convey what is happening in the poem?

• Do the images create an emotional response?

Personal response

• Here you need to discuss your personal feelings and attitudes to the poem.

• Select words/phrases/lines that you think are effective at evoking emotion.

• Write about how these words or phrases make you feel. Maybe they amuse you or make you feel

anger or sympathy or maybe they remind you of something personal to you.

Organisation and form/structure

• How many stanzas? Is there a purpose?

• How many lines in each stanza? Are there any stanzas that don’t follow the rule? Why?

• Are the line lengths regular or irregular? Why?

• What is the rhyme scheme? What is the purpose?

• Does the poem use enjambment/caesura? Why? •

Emotions

• What mood is created? How does the poet do this?

• Does the mood or atmosphere change? Why? What is the volta (turning point)?

Messages/Themes

• Why has it been written? What is the poet trying to say?

• What are the issue and themes that the poem explores?

• Do you think the poet achieved his or her purpose?

Glossary of Key Terms

1. Define each key term.

2. Provide an example.

3. Colour code(R/A/G)- how confident do you feel with identifying this technique in a poem? Alliteration –

Assonance –

Atmosphere-

Caesura-

Colloquial language-

Connotation –

Couplet-

Direct address-

Dramatic Monologue-

Emotive Language-

Enjambment-

First person narrative-

Hyperbole -

Imagery –

Inclusive language-

Irony-

Juxtaposition -

Metaphor-

Monologue-

Onomatopoeia-

Oxymoron-

Pathos-

Personification –

Power of three-

Quatrain-

Rhetorical Question-

Repetition-

Rhyme –

Semantic field -

Sibilance-

Simile –

Second person narrative-

Sonnet-

Theme –

Third person narrative-

Tone –

Volta-

Approaching Unseen Poetry

Andrew Forster is a modern poet known for writing

about childhood by drawing on autobiographical

material.

Brothers by Andrew Forster

Saddled with you for the afternoon, me and Paul

ambled across the threadbare field to the bus-stop,

talking over Sheffield Wednesday's chances in the Cup

while you skipped beside us in your ridiculous tank-top,

spouting six-year-old views on Rotherham United.

Suddenly you froze, said you hadn't any bus fare.

I sighed, said you should go and ask Mum

and while you windmilled home I looked at Paul.

His smile, like mine, said I was nine and he was ten

and we must stroll the town, doing what grown-ups do.

As a bus crested the hill we chased Olympic Gold.

Looking back I saw you spring towards the gate,

your hand holding out what must have been a coin.

I ran on, unable to close the distance I'd set in motion.

Question:

In ‘Brothers’, how does the writer present the

speaker’s feelings for his brother?

About:

Historical/Social context:

Personal response:

Emotion:

Message:

How confident do you feel with analysing

this poem?

Approaching

Unseen

Poetry

Imagery and techniques:

Organisation:

My Parents Kept me from Children who were Rough

Stephen Spender

My parents kept me from children who were rough

and who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes.

Their thighs showed through rags. They ran in the street

And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.

I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron

And their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms.

I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys

Who copied my lisp behind me on the road.

They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges

Like dogs to bark at our world. They threw mud

And I looked another way, pretending to smile,

I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled.

Question:

In ‘My Parents Kept me from Children’, how

does the poet present the ‘rough’ children?

About:



Organisation:

About:


Personal response:

Emotion:

Message:

How confident do you feel with analysing this poem?

Approaching Unseen Poetry

Vernon Scannell was most famous as a war poet,

having fought in World War Two.

Nettles by Vernon Scannell

My son aged three fell in the nettle bed.

'Bed' seemed a curious name for those green spears,

That regiment of spite behind the shed:

It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears

The boy came seeking comfort and I saw

White blisters beaded on his tender skin.

We soothed him till his pain was not so raw.

At last he offered us a watery grin,

And then I took my hook and honed the blade

And went outside and slashed in fury with it

Till not a nettle in that fierce parade

Stood upright any more. Next task: I lit

A funeral pyre to burn the fallen dead.

But in two weeks the busy sun and rain

Had called up tall recruits behind the shed:

My son would often feel sharp wounds again.

Question:

In ‘Nettles’, how does the poet present the

relationship between father and son?

About:


Personal response:

Emotion:

Message:


Organisation:


Analysing Unseen Poetry

Hour By Carol Ann Duffy

Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour,

bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.

We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers

or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.

For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair

like treasure on the ground; the Midas light

turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here

we are millonaires, backhanding the night

so nothing dark will end our shining hour,

no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit

hung from the blade of grass at your ear,

no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit

than here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,

but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.

Question:

In ‘Hour’, how does the poet present

attitudes to love?

About:


Personal response:

Emotion:

Message:


Organisation:



Simon Armitage often writes about everyday events that are

thought provoking.

The Clown Punk by Simon Armitage

Driving home through the shonky side of town,

three times out of ten you’ll see the town clown, like a basket of washing that got up

and walked, towing a dog on a rope. But

don’t laugh: every pixel of that man’s skin is shot through with indelible ink;

as he steps out at the traffic lights,

think what he’ll look like in thirty years’ time –

the deflated face and shrunken scalp

still daubed with the sad tattoos of high punk.

You kids in the back seat who wince and scream

when he slathers his daft mush on the windscreen,

remember the clown punk with his dyed brain,

then picture windscreen wipers, and let it rain.

Question:

In ‘The Clown Punk’, how does the poet

present stereotypes and prejudice?

About:


Personal response:

Emotion:

Message:


Organisation:



Simon Armitage often writes about everyday events that are

thought provoking.

Give by Simon Armitage

Of all the public places, dear

to make a scene, I’ve chosen here.

Of all the doorways in the world

to choose to sleep, I’ve chosen yours. I’m on the street, under the stars.

For coppers I can dance or sing.

For silver-swallow swords, eat fire.

For gold-escape from locks and chains.

It’s not as if I’m holding out

for frankincense or myrrh, just change.

You give me tea. That’s big of you. I’m on my knees. I beg of you.

Question:

In ‘Give’, how does the poet present the

speaker’s feelings about homelessness?

About:


Personal response:

Emotion:

Message:

Analy


Organisation:


Personal response:

Emotion:

Message:

sing Unseen Poetry


Flag is fro Agard s 2005 collectio . Agard ofte writes about identity and patriotism due to his ethnic and cultural

roots.

Flag by John Agard

What’s that fluttering in a breeze?

It’s just a piece of cloth

that brings a nation to its knees.

What’s that unfurling from a pole?


that makes the guts of men grow bold.

What’s that rising over a tent?


that dares the coward to relent.

What’s that flying across a field?


that will outlive the blood you bleed.

How can I possess such a cloth?

Just ask for a flag my friend.

Then blind your conscience to the end.

Question:

In ‘Flag’, how does the poet present the

speaker’s feelings about conflict?

About:



Organisation:


The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Question:

In ‘The Road Not Taken’, how does the poet

present the speaker’s feelings about difficult decisions?

About:


Personal response:

Emotion:

Message:


Organisation:



The Loner by Julie Holder

Question:

In ‘The Loner’, how does the poet present the

speaker’s feelings about school life?

About:


Personal response:

Emotion:

Message:


Organisation:



This poe was writte duri g Sassoo s military

service in WW1.

Suicide in the Trenches By Siegfried Sassoon

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.

Question:

In ‘Suicide in the Trenches’, how does the poet

present the speaker’s feelings about war?

About:


Personal response:

Emotion:

Message:


Organisation:


Analysing Unseen Poems

Slow Reader by Vicki Feaver

Question:

In ‘Slow Reader’, how does the poet present the

experience of reading?

About:


Personal response:

Message:

Emotion:


Organisation:


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