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Edexcel Poetry Anthology Notes BookletPOEMandCONTEXTThemeWhat is the poem about?ToneWhat is the mood of the poem?Structure/FORMHow is the poem set out?TechniquesPoetic terminologyLanguageSpecific words and their importance.Key QuotesYou can’t learn every poem, but these quotes might assist you.A Poison TreeBy William Blake.Romantic poet – literature rooted in nature and man’s destruction of nature. Blake often uses religious imagery and references. This poem links to anger (wrath) which is one of the seven deadly sins. Blake portrays how you should not allow the evil of wrath to root itself within you or it will lead to the devil’s work.A man addressing his anger once and getting over it, but then not addressing it the second time and allowing it to grow within him, rooting it firmly within his mind and eventually having it explode with devastating consequences for his “foe” who is found dead under a tree at the end.Angry and points, calm and measured at others.Ambiguous tone.Ballad form –4 stanzas each with 4 lines, strong rhyming couplets/AABB rhyme scheme.Symbolism – the tree. Firmly rooted and growing/stemming symbolising the anger growing within the speaker.Anaphora/repetition – “I”. Reinforces it was the speaker’s decision not to deal with his anger.Personification – “night had veil’d the pole” underscoring the darkness (evil) which hid the killing of his foe. “apple” – noun. The symbol of the temptation which links to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve.“see” – verb. Everything else is past tense but this is a present-tense verb, suggesting the speaker can still visualise the event. It has had a lasting effect.“foe” – noun. Suggests the person who is dead at the end was the speaker’s enemy, but it is never clarified why. Said in contrast to “friend” in the beginning line.“I was angry with my friend:I told my wrath, my wrath did end.”“In the morning glad I seeMy foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.”The Destruction of SennacheribBy Lord Byron.Another Romantic poet but more liberal – had an unsettled upbringing and led to Byron living a somewhat risqué life – even dabbling in homosexuality (which was illegal at the time). This poem links to a Biblical story and fundamentally shows that God’s power is far greater than that of mortals/man.An army went to attack Jerusalem but the ruler – Judah – begged for God’s help. As the army lay in wait the night before attacking, God responds to Judah’s request and sends an “Angel of Death” who breathes on the soldiers and kills them all – showing the power of God over man.Calm and never overly violent – reflecting the power of God over man.Tone changes in final stanza where the “wail” of the families of Sennacherib’s army contrasts the silent and peaceful deaths of the soldiers.Ballad form -6 stanzas each with 4 lines (quatrains), strong rhyming couplets/AABB rhyme scheme.The structure is set out chronologically, in order of the events as they occur.Simile/sibilance – “like stars on the sea”. Underscores the soldiers gleaming – portrays their shiny armour.Semantic/lexical field of water – “sea”, “wave”, “surf” – suggests cleansing like God cleanses the Earth of these evil men.Alliteration – “Face of the foe”. Sounds like the breath of the “Angel of Death” as he breathes on the army and kills them all, effortlessly.“summer” and “autumn” – nouns. Symbolises things strong and full of life, to then being in a state of decay.“breathed” – verb. Underscores the lack of effort the Angel of Death needed to wipe out Sennacherib’s army.“Lord!” – noun. The last word of the poem, underscoring Byron’s viewpoint that God is the most important power and force on Earth.“And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,”“And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass’d”Extract from The PreludeBy William Wordsworth.The third Romantic poet in our collection. As a young man, Wordsworth developed a love of nature, a theme reflected in many of his poems, but he suffered many personal losses in his life and so his poetry often links to grief and losing people he loved.This section from this epic poem explores the speaker finding a boat and going for a row, only to see the mountains loom over him which terrify him. It affects him for days afterwards – the message being that man does not have power over nature; nature has power over man.Switches from the speaker believing he can control nature, to realising how powerful nature is over man. From calm and peaceful/serene, to terror and nervousness.Blank verse form –All one lengthy stanza/section from a HUGE poem. No regular rhyme but s STRICT 10 syllables per line.Repetition of monosyllabic word “huge”, reinforces his loss of words at the size of the mountain.Simile – “like a swan”, suggesting he has power to manipulate the water and power over nature at this point. Iambic Pentameter – strong 10 syllables per line providing a conversation and chatty/personal tone to the poem.“summer” – noun. Suggests the most joyous season and happiness is contained within the poem. Misleading.“solitude” – noun. Shows how alone he is surrounded by nature and the eminent power of nature.“and” – conjunction. Repeated showing his breathlessness and anxiety caused by the mountain.“a huge peak, black and huge”“There hung a darkness, call it solitude”“No familiar shapes remained,”The Man He KilledBy Thomas Hardy.A Victorian novelist and poet who linked a lot of his works to nature and rural life. His work is often real and hard-hitting rather than figurative and encrypted. This poem links to The Boer Wars and his opinion that there is a nonsensical/futile (pointless) nature to war.Two men from opposite sides in the Boer War meet on the battlefield and shoot at each other. The speaker lives but his adversary does not. The speaker (NOT HARDY but a character in his poem) cannot understand why he killed someone – if they had met anywhere else they would have probably got along and been friends. The poem underscores Hardy’s view that war is futile and pointless. A chatty tone which turns dark and upset as the poem continues. The final stanza tries to make light of what he has done, but it is clear that he is critiquing the futility of war and trying to justify his actions in his head.Ballad form –5 stanzas each with 4 lines, strong ABAB rhyme scheme/alternate lines rhyme.Repetition – “because” suggesting he is stuttering and trying to justify (to himself) why he killed the man.Punctuation - particularly the full stop after “and killed him in his place.” Underscoring the finality of the man’s life.Enjambment – between stanzas 3 and 4, showing how he is thinking that the man was just like him and he is punishing himself for having killed him (underscoring the futility of the situation).“he” (in the title) – pronoun. Suggests the speaker is trying to separate himself from the incident.“foe” – noun. This word is repeated which suggests the speaker is trying to justify to himself why he killed the man – even though he didn’t know him.“although” – conjunction. Suggests he doesn’t manage to make himself believe he had any good reason to kill him and shows his regret and upset at having killed someone just like himself.“I shot him dead because-Because he was my foe,”“just as I – was out of work”Cousin KateBy Christina Rossetti.Another Victorian poet from a family of very important writers. A devoutly religious lady, she often used fantasy to discuss and explore Victorian issues in a symbolic way. This poem critiques the treatment of women in Victorian England.A young, Victorian girl gets chatted up and made to feel special by a “Lord”. She loses her virginity to him, only for him to then cast her aside and start dating the speaker’s cousin – Kate. The speaker is upset and angry but shows happiness and smugness in the end as it is revealed that she conceived a child from the affair (which made her an outcast in Victorian society) but her cousin cannot have a baby.ResentfulJealousBetrayedSmug (in the end)Ballad form –6 stanzas each with 8 lines per stanza. Mostly ABAB rhyme scheme but not every alternate line rhymes; where rhyme lacks, there is a point to be made about something being missing/taken away.Sibilance – “shameless shameful life”. Suggests the topic is being shushed – cannot be openly talked about in Victorian times.Repetition – “pure” in lines 25 and 27. Suggests she is mocking Kate when the speaker is no longer considered pure but the opposite due to the same man.Simile – “changed me like a glove”. Suggests he changed her like a fashion accessory, but used her like a puppet. “plaything” – noun. Suggests she was his toy which he played with for a bit but got bored of and cast aside.“he” – pronoun. She does not give him a name and repeats “he” throughout, suggesting she kept her dignity and didn’t name him, that he didn’t deserve a name, or that he was the one who was to blame for it all.“bought” – verb. Suggests that her cousin was tempted by money and was fickle unlike herself who truly loved the Lord.“To lead a shameless shameful life,”“he changed me like a glove:”“chose you and cast me by.”Half-casteBy John Agard.Born in Guyana in 1949 to parents of different races, John Agard moved to Britain in 1977. His poetry often includes imaginative and darkly comic critiques of racial misconceptions and divisions.Written so you read it in a strong Caribbean accent(and therefore feel like you are in speaker’s shoes), the speaker asks, over and over, why he is called “half-caste” and why, when other things are mixed – like keys on a piano – they are considered beautiful and he isn’t. AngryAnnoyed DemandingFree Verse form – debatably 3 stanzas with a short one at the beginning and end with a lengthy one on the middle. No regular rhyme. No set syllables per line. Almost like a rant/getting things off his chest.Semantic/lexical field of colour – “red”, “green”, “black, “white”. Suggests this is a central theme of the poem.Repetition – “half caste”. Makes you think of his critique of the term and how it is a negative thing to say.Punctuation – the lack of punctuation adds to the angry rant of the speaker who wants to get everything off his chest in one go and gets you to listen until the end.“excuse” – imperative verb. Polite but also quite aggressive. Speaker demanding that you stop and listen to his point.“human being” – noun. Central point of the poem. Underscores his main idea that we are all the same, no matter our skin colour.“whole” – adjective. Suggests he wants you to give him a real opportunity and sense of equality, not a half-hearted, fake attempt.“excuse me”“explain yuself”“I half-caste human being”ExposureBy Wilfred Owen.Owen was a British soldier in WW1 who was hospitalised at certain points in his career for “shell shock”. Died aged 25 after being shot in service in the war – just days before the war ended. This poem links to the horrors and dangers of war, not just from the opposing armies but from nature and the elements in the treacherous trenches.A WW1 soldier describes, in detail, the horrors of war - and not just as a result of the gun fire. The use of weather explains how deadly just being in the trenches is and how they are attacked by the elements as well as the opposition. A strong anti-war poem. OminousHorrificTerrifyingColdDeathlyA dramatic monologue debatably written in an Ode form. The poem is structured into 8 stanzas. The last line of each stanza is noticeably shorter and indented which emphasises its importance and disrupts the flow of the poem. Many of these short lines are either rhetorical questions or the repetition of the phrase ‘But nothing happens’. Both have the effect of emphasising the apparent pointlessness of what is going on.The first four lines of each stanza follow the rhyming pattern of?abba. This regularity emphasises the unchanging nature of daily life in the trenches. Many of these are half rhyme and do not quite work as full rhymes eg: knive us/nervous, wire/war, brambles/rumbles. This helps to unsettle the reader and defy the expected outcome, something which again echoes the experience of war.Personification – used to describe the dangers of the elements, making the weather seem as dangerous as the artillery.Sibilance/alliteration – “sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence”. Mimicking the sound not only of the icy, deadly winds, but of the whistling of the bullets as they fly through the air.Refrain – “but nothing happens” on the end of 4 of the stanzas, underscoring the futility of war and the monotony of their days/efforts. “ghosts” – noun. Suggests the soldiers are shadows of their form selves.“cringe” – verb. Shows the soldiers moving back from the weather and imminent dangers all around them.“we” – pronoun. A group or men, showing togetherness. Underscoring the fact that everyone felt the same negativity and sense of futility.“merciless iced east winds that knive us…”“sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.”“but nothing happens.”The Charge of the Light BrigadeBy Alfred, Lord Tennyson.Born at the beginning of the Victorian period, Tennyson was a hugely popular poet and writer. He was made “Poet Laureate” and created poems which were meant to be patriotic and reflect the heroism of our men and our great country. This poem links to an actual battle in the Crimean War where men were misinformed by their superior officer and sent to their inevitable death by marching/riding into an ambush.On October 25, 1854, a Commander in the Crimean War issued an ambiguous order that his soldiers misinterpreted, resulting in the infamous “Charge of the Light Brigade” against a heavily defended Russian position. Facing artillery and musket fire on three sides, British cavalrymen were slaughtered in 100s as they galloped down the so-called “valley of death.” Yet because they maintained discipline amid the chaos and even managed to briefly scatter the Russians, the British public glorified them. PatrioticGallantBraveHeroicOde form – 6 stanzas of varying lengths but all very narrow – symbolising the narrow valley.ABCBDDCB rhyme scheme in first stanza but this is not sustained throughout the poem. There is repetition of “Rode the six hundred” (refrain) and variations of this line at the end of every stanza.The rhythm mimics horses galloping.Anaphora/repetition of “theirs” in lines 13-15. Shows that it was not the soldiers’ decision or fault.Metaphor – “jaws of death”/”mouth of hell”. Suggests they were eaten alive by an evil monster, like the soldiers were the prey of the Russian army.Alliteration – “horse and hero”. Suggests breathlessness of speaker, like they are teary or upset retelling the story. “six hundred” – noun. Repeats and reinforces the amount of men who died in the battle.“Theirs” – pronoun. Suggests it was not their decision or fault that they died.“honour” – imperative verb. Demands you (as the reader) think of them as brave and worthy soldiers who died courageously.“Rode the six hundred.”“Cannon to the right of them,Cannon to the left of them, Cannon in front of them”“into the jaws of Death,Into the mouth of Hell”CatrinBy Gillian Clarke.A current Welsh poet (still alive), Clarke often links her writing to nature and the welsh landscape. However, as current and topical as most of her poems are, they are also haunted by many different kinds of past which re-surface in the present. This poem is autobiographical (as Gillian’s daughter is called Catrin) and it explores the struggles in a relationship between mother and daughter.Set out in two stanzas, the poem explores the relationship between mother and daughter – the first stanza being the birth and early childhood (past) and the second being their relationship in the now. It addresses struggles between the mother and daughter and how their relationship is not (and never has been) easy.TenseUnsettledAngryDramatic monologue written in Free Verse. Little rhyme and two stanzas of different sizes. Metaphor – “Red rope of love”. The rope being the placenta and the thing tying them together.Alliteration – “window watching”. The repetition of the W sounds symbolising the ups and downs of their relationship.Rhyme – there is very little, showing the erratic nature of the relationship.“fierce” – adjective. Underscores the conflict between the mother and daughter from the outset.“separate” – adjective. Shows that they are two individual people and their bond is not as natural and close as some mothers and daughters.“defiant” – adjective. Reinforces the teenage attitude of the daughter in the second stanza and how their conflict continues into their present day relationship.“I can remember you child,”“the tight red rope of love”“Still I am fighting you off,”War PhotographerBy Carole Satyamurti.A current writer, Satyamurti’s poems are read as personable, almost conversational digressions from our everyday surroundings, into ideas that feel suddenly larger than her subjects should allow – often with political and psychological undercurrents of war.Satyamurti reveals the details seen by a war photographer which show that war is individual and personal. The speaker remembers taking pleasant photos at “Ascot” and then, more recently and in stark contrast, tells how he/she sees a small child carrying a baby which she has to drop and abandon in order to save her own life - the photographer unable to help or assist but merely photograph and report the reality for the rest of the world to see. Positive at points -Horrific at others.HorrifyingEmotiveFree verse form – 5 stanzas of varying sizes with little rhyme.The first stanza is 8 lines whilst the middle ones are around half that size which help to build tension. The last stanza is 7 lines long suggesting something has been lost between the beginning and end for the speaker – possibly a part of their heart due to witnessing such atrocities in the war.Alliteration – “frame is flexible”. Underscores the nervousness of the speaker.Emotive language/imagery – “dropped her burden […] mouth too small”. Making you visualise the young girl dropping a baby to save her own life.Adjective – “first bomb of the morning”. Suggests loads more have been before and there will be more that day.“tragic” – adjective. The topic of the speaker’s photographs.“staggering” – verb. Describes the way the young girl was walking and underscoring her plight.“burden” – noun. The word used to describe the baby the young girl dropped to save her own life. Shows detachment by the speaker and harshness of the situation.“when I followed a small girl staggering”“she dropped her burden”“mouth too small for her dark scream,”Belfast ConfettiBy Ciaran Carson.A Northern Irish poet and writer who is still alive today. This poem links to ‘The Troubles’ – a time when organisations such as the IRA fought to end British rule of Northern Ireland.The speaker is in the middle of Belfast (the capital city of Northern Ireland) when conflicts are happening. The explosions and gunfire are metaphorically represented by punctuation marks suggesting language is more effective than artillery and underscoring the confusion of the speaker.ConfusedViolentLostFree verse form written in a dramatic monologue. The lines are long with a short few words which follow on the line underneath, suggesting the disjointed and confused nature of the events occurring around him. The first stanza is written in past tense, the second stanza in the present suggesting the events still trouble him (and others like him) today.Rhetorical questions – “why can’t I escape?” and “What is my name?”. Underscores his confusion as to what is happening.Metaphor – “labyrinth”. Even though he knows the area, he describes it as a maze, suggesting he has to find his way through the firing and conflict.Imagery – “A fusillade of question marks”. Showing a quick gunfire of question marks which again underscores his confusion. “suddenly” – adverb. The opening word of the poem which grabs the reader’s attention immediately, like explosions do to the speaker.“stuttering” – verb. Underscores his confusion and how frightened he is at the situation.“escape” – verb. Suggests he is trapped and there is no way out. Underscores how panicked he is.“Suddenly as the riot squad moved in,”“I was trying to complete a sentence in my head but it kept stuttering,”The Class GameBy Mary Casey.A current, working-class writer from Liverpool, Casey clearly critiques prejudgements and discrimination of people like her because of their supposed “class”.The speaker uses basic, monosyllabic, sometimes colloquial/scouse language to question and explain how she doesn’t think she should be judged because she is working class, but fundamentally, that she is proud of her roots and where she comes from.AngryPassionateProudFree verse form written in a dramatic monologue. One long stanza with little rhyme. Repetition of “How can you tell what class I’m from?” makes you (as the reader) question your own prejudgements of people like the speaker.Metaphor – “hands are stained with toil”. Suggesting she works really hard but ridicules that she should be judged because of that reason.Repetition – “how can you tell what class I’m from?” Making the reader question their judgements.Half Rhyme – “from/some”, “from/bum”. Suggests she doesn’t want to conform to please others – she is proud of who she is. “corpy” – colloquial language used for a council house. Underscores her roots and working class background.“pee” – slang language, not formal English. Suggests she doesn’t want to try and speak posh and is happy at her choice of vocab.“proud” – adjective. In the last line of the poem and sums up her message.“How can you tell what class I’m from?”“’cos we live in a corpy,”“say toilet instead of bog when I want to pee?”PoppiesBy Jane Weir.Another poet who is current and still alive today, Weir is an English-Italian writer who has witnessed numerous cultures and lifestyles (including living in NI and witnessing “The Troubles” first hand) which she explores in her poetry. This poem is NOT about WW1 but a son going to a war in the present times and how upsetting that is for the mother. Using Remembrance Sunday as a motif, the speaker explains her worry and concerns as her son goes to fight in a current-day war. She describes the inscriptions of the fallen men from WW1 and hopes that her son does not meet the same fate. Suggests she is the brave one letting him go to war.LovingWorrisomeHopefulPersonal Written in free verse, there are four stanzas of irregular length; 6, 11, 12 and 6 lines each. There is no regular rhyme scheme, though in places there is internal assonant and half rhyme.Alliteration – “yellow bias binding around your blazer”. Repetition of the “B” sound reinforces the mother’s upset and tearfulness.Metaphor – “gelled blackthorns of your hair”. Suggests the real, hardness of his hair but also links him with nature and the natural barbed-wire of the battlefields.Motif – “dove” repeated in the poem. A dove is a symbol of peace or someone who supports peaceful measures to avoid war and conflicts.“Armistice” – noun. The day when a truce was achieved in WW1. “dove” – noun. A symbol of peace.“intoxicated” – verb. Suggests he is “drunk” with the idea of going to war.“Before you left, I pinned one onto your lapel,”“I was brave, as I walked with you”“The dove pulled freely against the sky,”No Problem By Benjamin Zephaniah.Another current poet and writer, whose poetry is strongly influenced by the music and poetry of Jamaica. He is a Rastafarian man from Birmingham and his work often addresses racism and prejudice towards people like himself.The poem is written in a strong Caribbean accent so you are forced to put yourself in his shoes. He discusses how he is often labelled as a “problem” but, in actuality, has a lot to offer and it is the native people with the problem, not him.DefiantPassionateProudAnother free verse poem written in a dramatic monologue. Every other line rhymes (alternate line rhyme scheme) suggests he is alternative but that shouldn’t make him problematic. Two stanzas of unequal length (16 lines and 8 lines) suggesting he has been through the worst and things are getting better.Anaphora/Repetition of “I”. Because he doesn’t state “we”, it makes the reader feel like the speaker is alone and isolated.Rhyme – strong, alternate line rhyme scheme. Suggests racism is a regular problem or that every other person he meets is a racist?Metaphor – “pigeon hole”. Suggests people prejudge him without getting to know him. “problem” – noun. Repeated throughout to state that he (the speaker) hasn’t got one and definitely isn’t causing one.“versatile” – adjective. The poem is mostly monosyllabic but this is a polysyllabic word, underscoring his intelligence.“white” – adjective. Final word of the poem and suggests those are the people with the problem.“I am not de problem”“I can do more dan dance”“Sum of me best friends are white.”What Were They Like?By Denise Levertov.Died in 1997 so her work is quite recent. Her poems often linked to humanity and her faith in God. This poem criticises the destructive nature of war – in particular the Vietnam WarThe poem uses a “question and answer” type structure to explore the horrors of the Vietnam war. The questions in the first block of the poem refer to different aspects of a culture; the answers reveal how war has destroyed or altered these aspects and the tone of the poem subtly conveys a sense of deep anger and sadness about this.NegativeDefeatedFree verse poem set out in questions in the first stanza and answers in the second stanza (by a subordinate). The question stanza is much shorter, however, implying the answers are not as straight forward as the questions.Alliteration – “Bitter to the burned mouth”. Not only provides horrific imagery but suggests speaker is blubbering/upset as they answer the questions posed.Metaphor – “light hearts turned to stone”. Links to the heavy weight and burden the war imposed on the people of Vietnam who were left heavy-hearted.Imagery – “all the bones were charred”. Relaying to the reader the harsh, devastating and horrifying results of the bombing.“buds” – noun. Suggests new life.“sir” - noun. Suggests the person answering is a lower rank than the person asking the questions.“silent” – adjective. Implying that all is dead, not only people but their spirits too.“1) Sir, their light hearts turned to stone”“3) Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.”“It is silent now.” ................
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