Poetry Paper 2 1 hour 30 mins 2 questions This exam is worth 40% of your overall mark for literature

Poetry Tone Adjective Irony Stanza Emotive Sonnet Simile Metaphor Alliteration Enjambment Onomatopoeia Juxtaposition Caesura Rhyme Scheme Iambic pentameter Symbolism Narrator Structure Connotations Ambiguity Rhythm Rhyming Couplets Half Rhyme

Section A – Unseen Texts 20 marks = 45 mins. You’ll get an unseen poem and an unseen prose extract. You answer on ONE of these – the poem is your best bet as you have more to say on structure and you’ll have a complete text to look at. The question tends to be very vague. DON’T rush into writing the answer. It is essential that you read the poem slowly and make sure you’ve really understood it and have intelligent things to say before you start writing. Make sure you use the bullet points in the question to help you. Top Grade Tip: Don’t structure your answer with a paragraph per bullet point, instead refer to each bullet point in each every paragraph.

Section B - Anthology Section B – Anthology 20 marks = 45 mins. You’ll get two questions – you need to answer ONE. Read both questions and take time to think about which one you can answer best. Don’t make a snap decision based only on the named poem. The question tends to be theme based. One or two poems will be named. If you choose one of the poems, make sure you take time to choose the one that fits the question best NOT your favourite one! You don’t need to compare. Make sure you treat the two poems equally. Keep an eye on the time!

The most important advice: Write a lot about a little. Every paragraph needs a quotation from the poem. Don’t give loads of examples, instead really analyse a few examples in as much detail as you can. Make sure you really pick apart the words and techniques used. Make sure you talk about the structure of the poem

Without looking at your anthology/ book In 3 minutes, how many of the poems can you remember from the anthology? List the 16 poems – either the name (and the poet?) or a brief description, the one about …

1. If –,Rudyard Kipling 2. Prayer Before Birth, Louis MacNeice 3. Half-Past Two, U. A. Fanthorpe 4. Piano, D. H. Lawrence 5. Hide and Seek, Vernon Scannell 6. Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare 7. La Belle Dame Sans Merci, John Keats 8. Poem at Thirty-Nine, Alice Walker 9. Telephone Conversation, Wole Soyinka 10. Once Upon A Time, Gabriel Okara 11. War Photographer, Carol Ann Duffy 12. The Tyger, William Blake 13. My Last Duchess, Robert Browning 14. A Mother in a Refugee Camp, Chinua Achebe 15. Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas 16. Remember, Christina Rossetti

Which poem? Which poem does the quotation come from? Why are these words important? Any other intelligent thoughts? Are any techniques being used? Why?

What immortal hand or eye Dare frame they fearful symmetry The Tyger

A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. Piano

Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad. Remember

I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, Prayer Before Birth

“I hate a wasted journey – I am African.” Silence. Telephone Conversation

I see a lily on they brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on they cheek a fading rose Fast withereth too. La Belle Dame Sans Merci

He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays beneath his hands, which did not tremble then though seem to now War Photographer

She held a ghost-smile between her teeth, and in her eyes the memory Of a mother’s pride... A Mother in a Refugee Camp

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same If --

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle...

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Sonnet 116

Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. My Last Duchess

Once upon a schooltime He did Something Very Wrong (I forget what it was). Half-Past Two

I have learned, too, to laugh with only my teeth and shake hands without my heart. Once Upon a Time

How I miss my father. Poem at Thirty-Nine

Good Luck!