Step 1: How does it look on the page? (before you’ve even read it) Is it neatly ordered into stanzas that have the same number of lines in each? Is it confused and scattered? WHY do you imagine...? What might that suggest about what will be inside the poem? (chaotic? Ordered? Free? ) Do any stanzas or lines stand out?

Step 2: Rhythm and rhyme? Is rhyme used? Why? Or is it in free-verse? (no rhyme or syllabic patterns – patterns are the number of beats) Which words are being paired/pulled together by the rhyme? Are they connected? Are they juxtaposed (opposite)? What is the pace like? (fast/slow and why) How does it affect the tone (mood)?

Step 3: Are there any words or images that stand out to you? What are their connotations?

It might be the way the word sounds or the image it creates in your head. Highlight them. Can you see a pattern in the words/images that you’ve

highlighted? What the key words mean?Do they have another deeper meaning or a symbolic meaning?

How do they sound? Hard (plosive) or soft (sibilant)? Why? Are the words one beat (mono-syllabic)? Or are they multi-syllabic? Why? How does it make the poem sound? Does it affect the tone (mood)? Does it make the speaker sound

nervous? Honest? Sad? Happy?

Step 4: Punctuation?How does it make the sentence sound?

How does it change the pace (speed) or tone (mood). Does it reveal how the speaker is feeling?

Full stops = truthful and direct. Or could be breathy. If the full-stop is at the end of the line then it is end-stopped.

Question marks – questioning?! Or persuasive if rhetorical.Exclamation marks – animated or shouting or passionate.Dashes – hesitant, confused, pauses for dramatic impact?

Semi-colon or lots of commas – lists or long sentences – slows pace, adds tension, creates detail?

Enjambment – sentence flowing over onto the next line. Does the poem flow or does it have moments that are awkward?

Are pauses created (caesura - a pause in the middle of a line)

Step 5: Overall structure?How is the piece structured (put together)?

Are their points of high tension or low tension and why?Do we get hints that something will go wrong before it does (foreshadowing)?

Why?Does the poem develop or change tone (mood)? Why?

Does the tone (mood) change from the beginning to the end? Why?Do the words reflect the structure... for example if there is a clash in tone (mood)

between the beginning and end, are there words that clash too?

Step 6: Techniques – why have they been used? How do they affect the tone (mood)? How do they make the speaker sound?

Verb – Adjective - Noun - Proper noun Pronoun Adverb - Plosive - Sibilance Onomatopoeia - Mono-syllabic

Metaphor - Imagery - IronyDramatic Irony - Alliteration

Assonance - End-stoppedEnjambment - Caesura

Formal or informal language

Step 7: For a B or higher...IS THE TECHNIQUE USED EFFECTIVE (successful)? OR NOT? Why?

ZOOM Analysis grid

Unseen Poetry

Punctuation: What does it do to tone? How does it affect pace?

Punctuation mark Some possible effects (depending on context)Full stops truthful and direct

could be breathy (with a lot of short sentences) controlled / controlling unhinged? finite and definite does it create relief or closure?

Question marks persuasive if rhetorical what is the reader being asked to think about? aggressive or anxious? accusing the reader?

Exclamation marks animated? shouting? passionate

Dashes hesitant or confused? creating a dramatic impact reflecting fragmented sense of self?

Semi-colon balance or contrast? sense of continuity / endlessness

Commas lists can sound frantic / increase pace exasperation does it balance the sentence? what comes before + after – emphasised by the pause? controls the emphasis

Colon providing a persuasive summary sense of closure for an idea builds momentum to a conclusion

For sentence structure:Look for patterns in structures or connectives. What is the effect of this repetition / pattern? When is that connective usually used – what does it signify?

YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH BEING VAGUE!It makes the reader want to read on It creates a strong effect

Use a range of these sentence starters in your writing. Be sure to cover each area of analysis and evaluation.

DISSECTING YOUR QUOTE:The use of “X” could represent…This implies /reflects / suggests / exhibits / demonstrates / indicates…The use of X allows the poet to…This could be…

CONSIDERING THE EFFECT ON THE READER:Some might interpret this to mean that…This suggests to the reader that…This provokes an emotional response because…

MAKING LINKS WITH OTHER PARTS OF THE POEM:This is also shown in…This is similar/different to …

MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS:However, this could also…It also demonstrates…Alternatively, “X” may reflect…Alternatively this may show…Alternatively, this could be referring to…However perhaps…

EVALUATING:The line is interesting, as…This is effective as…A very effective element is…This is additionally effective because…This is successful as…This is an effective technique because…

William Blake(1757- 1827)

The Tiger

Tiger, Tiger, burning brightIn the forests of the night,What immortal hand or eyeCould frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skiesBurnt the fire of thine eyes?On what wings dare he aspire?What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what artCould twist the sinews of thy heart?And when thy heart began to beat,What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread graspDare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,And watered heaven with their tears,Did he smile his work to see?Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tiger, Tiger, burning brightIn the forests of the night,What immortal hand or eyeDare frame thy fearful symmetry?

John Keats(1795- 1821)La Belle Dame Sans MerciI.O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither’d from the lake, And no birds sing. II.O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! 5 So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel’s granary is full, And the harvest’s done.

III.I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever dew, 10 And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too.

IV.I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful—a faery’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, 15 And her eyes were wild.

V.I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look’d at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. 20 VI.I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery’s song. VII.She found me roots of relish sweet, 25 And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said— “I love thee true.” VIII.She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore, 30 And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. IX.And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream’d 35 On the cold hill’s side. X.I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!” 40 XII saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side. XII.And this is why I sojourn here, 45 Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake, And no birds sing.

AutumnSeason of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. 2. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. 3. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Thomas Hardy(1840- 1928)

Drummer Hodge

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to restUncoffined -- just as found:His landmark is a kopje-crestThat breaks the veldt around:And foreign constellations westEach night above his mound.

Young Hodge the drummer never knew --Fresh from his Wessex home --The meaning of the broad Karoo,The Bush, the dusty loam,And why uprose to nightly viewStrange stars amid the gloam.

Yet portion of that unknown plainWill Hodge for ever be;His homely Northern breast and brainGrow to some Southern tree,And strange-eyed constellations reignHis stars eternally.

The Ruined Maid

“O ‘Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town? And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?”--“O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?” said she.

--“You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!”--“Yes: that’s how we dress when we’re ruined," said she.

--“At home in the barton you said ‘thee’ and ‘thou,'And ‘thik oon,' and ‘theäs oon,' and ‘t’other’; but nowYour talking quite fits ‘ee for high compa-ny!”--“Some polish is gained with one’s ruin," said she.

--“Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleakBut now I’m bewitched by your delicate cheek,And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!”--“We never do work when we’re ruined," said she.

--“You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,And you’d sigh, and you’d sock; but at present you seemTo know not of megrims or melancho-ly!”--“True. One’s pretty lively when ruined," said she.

"--I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!”--“My dear--a raw country girl, such as you be,Cannot quite expect that. You ain’t ruined," said she.

Christina Rossetti(1830- 1894)

Cousin Kate

I was a cottage maiden Hardened by sun and air Contented with my cottage mates, Not mindful I was fair. Why did a great lord find me out, And praise my flaxen hair? Why did a great lord find me out, To fill my heart with care?

He lured me to his palace home - Woe's me for joy thereof- To lead a shameless shameful life, His plaything and his love. He wore me like a silken knot, He changed me like a glove; So now I moan, an unclean thing, Who might have been a dove.

O Lady kate, my cousin Kate, You grew more fair than I: He saw you at your father's gate, Chose you, and cast me by. He watched your steps along the lane, Your work among the rye; He lifted you from mean estate

To sit with him on high.

Because you were so good and pure He bound you with his ring: The neighbors call you good and pure, Call me an outcast thing. Even so I sit and howl in dust, You sit in gold and sing: Now which of us has tenderer heart? You had the stronger wing.

O cousin Kate, my love was true, Your love was writ in sand: If he had fooled not me but you, If you stood where I stand, He'd not have won me with his love Nor bought me with his land; I would have spit into his face And not have taken his hand.

Yet I've a gift you have not got, And seem not like to get: For all your clothes and wedding-ring I've little doubt you fret. My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride, Cling closer, closer yet: Your father would give his lands for one To wear his coronet.

Remember Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann'd: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

W.H. Auden(1907- 1973)

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.For nothing now can ever come to any good.

The Fall of IcarusAbout suffering they were never wrong,The old Masters: how well they understoodIts human position: how it takes placeWhile someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waitingFor the miraculous birth, there always must beChildren who did not specially want it to happen, skatingOn a pond at the edge of the wood:They never forgotThat even the dreadful martyrdom must run its courseAnyhow in a corner, some untidy spotWhere the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horseScratches its innocent behind on a tree.In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns awayQuite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman mayHave heard the splash, the forsaken cry,But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shoneAs it had to on the white legs disappearing into the greenWater, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seenSomething amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Robert Frost(1874- 1963)

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;                

5

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 thereHad worn them really about the same,                

10

And both that morning equally layIn 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.                

15

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere 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.

Wilfred Owen(1893- 1918)

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out3 their hasty orisons.4 No mockeries5 now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, – The shrill, demented6 choirs of wailing shells; And bugles7 calling for them from sad shires.8 What candles9 may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor10 of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk11 a drawing-down of blinds.12

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backsAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep. Many had lost their bootsBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hootsOf tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!---An ecstasy of fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,---My friend, you would not tell with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie: Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.

Dorothy Parker(1893- 1967)"Star Light, Star Bright--"

Star, that gives a gracious dole, What am I to choose?Oh, will it be a shriven soul, Or little buckled shoes?

Shall I wish a wedding-ring, Bright and thin and round,Or plead you send me covering- A newly spaded mound?

Gentle beam, shall I imploreGold, or sailing-ships,Or beg I hate forevermoreA pair of lying lips?

Swing you low or high away, Burn you hot or dim;My only wish I dare not say-Lest you should grant me him.

Maya Angelou

(1928- 2014)

I Know Why A Caged Bird Sings

The free bird leapson the back of the windand floats downstreamtill the current endsand dips his wingsin the orange sun raysand dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalksdown his narrow cagecan seldom see throughhis bars of ragehis wings are clipped andhis feet are tiedso he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird singswith fearful trillof the things unknownbut longed for stilland his tune is heardon the distant hill for the caged birdsings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breezeand the trade winds soft through the sighing treesand the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawnand he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreamshis shadow shouts on a nightmare screamhis wings are clipped and his feet are tiedso he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird singswith a fearful trillof things unknownbut longed for stilland his tune is heardon the distant hillfor the caged birdsings of freedom.

Wendy Cope(1945-)

The Month of May

'O! the month of May, the merry month of May...'--Thomas Dekker (d. 1632)

The month of May, the merry month of May,So long awaited, and so quickly past.The winter's over, and it's time to play.

I saw a hundred shades of green todayAnd everything that Man made was outclassed.The month of May, the merry month of May.

Now hello pink and white and farewell grey.My spirits are no longer overcast.The winter's over, and it's time to play.

Sing 'Fa la la la la,' I dare to say,(Tried being modern but it didn't last)'The month of May, the merry month of May.'

I don't know how much longer I can stay.The summers come, the summers go so fast,And soon there will be no more time to play.

So carpe diem, gather buds, make hay.The world is glorious. Compare, contrastDecember with the merry month of May.Now is the time, now is the time to play.

After the lunch

On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.I wipe them away with a black woolly gloveAnd try not to notice I’ve fallen in love.

On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:This is nothing. You’re high on the charm and the drink.But the juke-box inside me is playing a songThat says something different. And when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hairI am tempted to skip. You’re a fool. I don’t care.The head does its best but the heart is the boss —I admit it before I am halfway across.

Tony Harrison

(1937-)

Marked with D.When the chilled dough of his flesh went in an ovennot unlike those he fuelled all his life, I thought of his cataracts ablaze with Heavenand radiant with the sight of his dead wife, light streaming from his mouth to shape her name, 'not Florence and not Flo but always Florrie.'I thought how his cold tongue burst into flamebut only literally, which makes me sorry, sorry for his sake there's no Heaven to reach.I get it all from Earth my daily breadbut he hungered for release from mortal speechthat kept him down, the tongue that weighed like lead.The baker’s man that no one will see riseand England made to feel like some dull oafis smoke, enough to sting one person’s eyesand ash (not unlike flour) for one small loaf.

Jo Shapcott(1953-)

Of MutabilityToo many of the best cells in my bodyare itching, feeling jagged, turning rawin this spring chill. It’s two thousand and four and I don’t know a soul who doesn’t feel small among the numbers. Razor small.

Look down these days to see your feet mistrust the pavement and your blood tests turn the doctor’s expression grave.Look up to catch eclipses, gold leaf, comets, angels, chandeliers, out of the corner of your eye, join them if you like, learn astrophysics, orlearn folksong, human sacrifice, mortality, flying, fishing, sex without touching much.Don’t trouble, though, to head anywhere but the sky.

Sophie Hannah(1971-)

Don’t Say I Said

Next time you speak to you-know-whoI’ve got a message for him.Tell him that I have lost a stoneSince the last time I saw him.Tell him that I’ve got three new books

Coming out soon, but play itCool, make it sound spontaneous.Don’t say I said to say it.He might ask if I’ve mentioned him.Say I have once, in passing.Memorise everything he saysAnd, no, it won’t be grassingWhen you repeat his words to me –It’s the only way to play it.Tell him I’m toned and tanned and fine.Don’t say I said to say it.Say that serenity and graceHave taken root inside me.My top-note is frivolityBut beneath, dark passions guide me.Tell him I’m radiant and repleteAnd add that every day itSeems I am harder to resist.Don’t say I said to say it.Tell him that all my ancient faultsHave been eradicated.I do not carp or analyseAs I might have when we dated.Say I’m not bossy any moreOr, better still, convey itSubtly, but get the point across.Don’t say I said to say it.

Owen Sheers(1974-)

Mametz WoodFor years afterwards the farmers found them –the wasted young, turning up under their plough bladesas they tended the land back into itself.A chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade,the relic of a finger, the blownand broken bird’s egg of a skull,all mimicked now in flint, breaking blue in whiteacross this field where they were told to walk, not run,towards the wood and its nesting machine guns.And even now the earth stands sentinel,reaching back into itself for reminders of what happenedlike a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin.This morning, twenty men buried in one long grave,a broken mosaic of bone linked arm in arm,their skeletons paused mid dance-macabrein boots that outlasted them,their socketed heads tilted back at an angleand their jaws, those that have them, dropped open.

As if the notes they had sunghave only now, with this unearthing,slipped from their absent tongues.

On Goingi. m. Jean Sheers

There were instruments, as there always are,To measure, record and monitor,windows into the soul’s temperature.But you were disconnected from these.and lay instead an ancient child,fragile on your side,your breath working at the skin of your cheeklike a blustery wind at a blind.There was only one measurementI needed anyway, which you gave,triggered by the connection of my kissagainst your paper templeand registered in the flicker of your open eyes,in their half-second of recorded understandingbefore they disengaged and you slipped backinto the sleep of their slow-closing.

Brian Patten(1946-)

Nothing Is Ever As You Want It To Be

You lose your love for her and thenIt is her who is lost,And then it is both who are lost,And nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.

In a very ordinary worldA most extraordinary pain mingles with the small routines,The loss seems huge and yetNothing can be pinned down or fully explained.

You are afraid.If you found the perfect loveIt would scald your hands,Rip the skin from your nerves,Cause havoc with a computered heart.

You lose your love for her and then it is her who is lost.You tried not to hurt and yetEverything you touched became a wound.You tried to mend what cannot be mended,

You tried, neither foolish nor clumsy,To rescue what cannot be rescued.

You failed,And now she is elsewhereAnd her night and your nightAre both utterly drained.

How easy it would beIf love could be brought home like a lost kittenOr gathered in like strawberries,How lovely it would be; But nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.

Minister for Exams

When I was a child I sat an exam.This test was so simpleThere was no way i could fail.

Q1. Describe the taste of the Moon.

It tastes like Creation I wrote,it has the flavour of starlight.

Q2. What colour is Love?

Love is the colour of the water a manlost in the desert finds, I wrote.

Q3. Why do snowflakes melt?

I wrote, they melt because they fallon to the warm tongue of God.

There were other questions.They were as simple.

I described the grief of Adamwhen he was expelled from Eden.I wrote down the exact weight of an elephant's dream

Yet today, many years later,For my living I sweep the streetsor clean out the toilets of the fathotels.

Why? Because constantly I failedmy exams.Why? Well, let me set a test.

Q1. How large is a child'simagination?Q2. How shallow is the soul of theMinister for exams?