1. LOVE POETRY MODULE
2nd Year English Poetry

2. ‘Being in Love’ by Roger Mcgough
you are so very beautiful
i cannot help admiring
your eyes so often sadnessful
and lips so kissinspiring
i think about my being-in-love
and touch the flesh you wear so well
I think about my being in love
and wish you were as well
as well

3. ‘Being in Love’ Neologisms!
Why do you think the poet uses two made-up words: “sadnessful” (line 3) and “kissinspiring” (line 4)?
A made-up word is called a neologism!
Do they communicate meanings that really words wouldn’t, or does he perhaps use them to show us something about the narrator?

4. Rhyme
The poem has an ABAB structure – though it is varied a little in the second verse.
The first verse has slightly odd rhymes because of the made-up words.
The second verse uses heavy rhymes because the same words are used so often.
Why might the poet be using rhyme in this way?
Is there anything he might be telling us about the character of the narrator?

5. ‘Love Is’ by Adrian Henri
Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fanclub with only two fans
Love is walking holding paint-stained hands
Love is.
Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of strange delights
Love is when you don't put out the light
Love is
Love is the presents in Christmas shops
Love is when you're feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops
Love is you and love is me
Love is prison and love is free
Love's what's there when you are away from me

6. ‘Advice to a Teenage Daughter’ by Isobel Thrilling
You have found a new war-game called Love Here on your dressing-table
Stand arrayed brave ranks of lipsticks brandishing swords of cherry pink and flame. Behold the miniature armies of little jars, packed with the scented dynamite of flowers. See the dreaded tweezers; tiny pots of manufactured moonlight, stick-on-stars.
Beware my sweet; Conquest may seem easy but you cant compete with football, motor-cycles, cars, cricket, computer-games, or a plate of chips.
Vocab:
Arrayed = displayed
Brandishing = showing
Conquest = beating someone

7. ‘Advice to a Teenage Daughter’ by Isobel Thrilling
Vocab:
Arrayed = displayed
Brandishing = showing
Conquest = beating someone
You have found a new war-game called Love Here on your dressing-table
Stand arrayed brave ranks of lipsticks brandishing swords of cherry pink and flame. Behold the miniature armies of little jars, packed with the scented dynamite of flowers. See the dreaded tweezers; tiny pots of manufactured moonlight, stick-on-stars.
Beware my sweet; Conquest may seem easy but you cant compete with football, motor-cycles, cars, cricket, computer-games, or a plate of chips.
Stylistic Features of the poem:
Military Language [find examples]
Personification
Alliteration
Metaphors
Contrast between mundane images of reality and war

8. Theme of ‘Advice to Teenage Daughter’
Love
Is the poem celebrating love or offering a different message about love?
Who is talking in the poem?
What is their tone throughout the poem?
What words would you use to support your idea about the tone?

9. ‘Advice to a Teenage Daughter’
Qs:
1. Why does the poet use military language in this poem? Is it effective in your opinion?
2. The poem divides into two sections turning on the word ‘Beware.’ What point is the speaker making in each section?
3. What is your favourite image in the poem. Explain why.

10. When You Old WB Yeats

11. When You Are Old WB Yeats
 When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

12. When You Are Old WB Yeats
 When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Vocab:
Nodding = asleep
Pilgrim soul = unique person
Amid = in the middle of
Paced = ran through

13. ‘When You Are Old’ WB Yeats
STYLISTIC FEATURES OF THE POEM:
Sound Effects –
End rhyme =
Rhythm = slow, leisurely; long lines, full of assonance
Internal rhyme = nodding/book; beauty/true
Assonance = soft look
Repetition = word ‘and’ goes through the whole poem – suggests that Yeats has one big long thought – wants to link the many images of Maud Gonne together in his mind
This image carries her through youth into old age in one sentence

14. ‘When You Are Old’ WB YEATS
Vivid Images – the poet’s beloved at the end of her life
Contrast – between her youth and old age
Contrast – between the affection others had for her and the poet’s genuine love for her
Personification of love
Metaphor – ‘hid his face among a crowd of stars’

15. ‘When You Are Old’ WB YEATS
Theme of love
What is the central message about love in this poem?
What do you think is the relationship between the two characters in the poem?
What is the atmosphere of the poem at the start?
Does the tone change in the final stanza? How?

16. ‘When you are old’
Qs.
1. What is the central message about love in this poem? What is the poet’s aim in writing the poem?
2. What qualities does the woman have that the poet finds attractive?
3. What image do we get of the woman in old age?

17. ‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy
Connotations = what are the traditional things that come into our mind when we think of valentine’s day?
What are the traditional presents we give?
Why do we give this?
What is the problem with these sorts of gifts?

18. Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy

19. Would you have thought of...?

20. Thinking about the images
Discuss what we associate tears with?
Is it sometimes ambivalent?
Ambivalent = two different meanings for the same thing
What qualities do you associate with an onion?
Think of smell, what it does to our eyes, our breath, is it a weak or strong flavour?

21. ‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy
Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
 Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

22. ‘Valentine’ - first three stanzas
Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
What is surprising about the first lines?
What is the poet’s tone here? Does she know that it is a surprising gift?
Is she defensive?
What do you make of the metaphor of the onion?
What surprising point does the third stanza make about love?
Is it accurate?

23. ‘Valentine’ – second half of poem
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
Why does the poet repeat the line ‘I give you’?
What might be happening between the lines?
What characteristics does she point out about the onion?
Does the other person understand the meaning of the gift?