English Anthology

overall notes on the poem

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The Clown Punk- Simon Armitage

The Clown Punk

  • Ambiguous ending
  • based on a real person
  • colloquial language
  • stereotypical
  • had a sad past life
  • lonely

begins with a stereotype then attacks it and shows you how it is wrong

1 of 15

Checking out me History- John Agard

Checking out me History

  • he doesnt know who he really is because he hasnt been taught about black history
  • taking a second glance at his culture
  • he is challenging what he has been told
  • dialect used

all of these things are repeated throughout the poem to emphasise how much his culture means to him

2 of 15

Horse Whisperer- Andrew Forster

Horse Whisperer

  • sensual diction
  • elegaic tone
  • narrative
  • dramatic monologue
  • only one voice
  • the title is mysterious like the poem
  • loves horses

"helpless children to safety"- this is a pied piper echo because he wants to help but by doing that, he is hurting others

3 of 15

Medusa- Carol Ann Duffy

Medusa

  • power of 3 used regularly- shows she is powerful
  • dramatic monologue
  • free verse
  • jealousy makes her ugly
  • bitter language
  • shocking imagery
  • sarcasm

perhaps she is jealous of the people she has killed because she cannot die and death is her only way of freedom

4 of 15

Singh Song- Daljit Nagra

Singh Song

  • love is more important to him than work
  • the poem is in free verse to show how free his life is
  • "my bride" repeated 3 times-rule of 3-emphasizes his love for his wife
  • dialect
  • unorthodox

I think that he loves his wife so much because she is to different to the rest of the typical Indians, she stands out and that is what he likes about her.

5 of 15

Brendon Gallacher- Jackie Kay

Brendon Gallacher

  • elegy
  • simple language like a nursery rhyme
  • memories are still there even if he is not
  • "my Brendon Gallacher" is repeated to try and get him back
  • not a very dramatic death
  • mother destroyed her escape from life
  • half rhyme to show that he is only half real

the speaker made Brendon's life seem worse than hers so she doesn't feel so bad

6 of 15

Give- Simon Armitage

Give

  • free verse
  • could be writing about "the clown punk"
  • sympathetic tones
  • ambiguity
  • linked with the bible
  • desperate
  • sarcasm

also linked with Christmas because the 'three wise men' brought 'Frankinsense and Myrrh' on Christmas day

7 of 15

Les Grands Seigneurs- Dorothy Molloy

Les Grands Seigneurs

  • colloquial language
  • opposite of a 'fairy-tale-ending'
  • naive
  • prejudice

at the beginning, the speaker is in control but by the time we get to the end, he is in control because of her naive ways

8 of 15

Ozymandias- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias

  • warns you against power
  • be careful what you wish for
  • a waste of time&space

Percy Bysshe Shelley did not like monarchs, especially in England

9 of 15

My Last Duchess- Robert Browning

My Last Duchess

  • colloquial language
  • formal language
  • dramatic monologue
  • no stanzas to show long marriage
  • caesura- she's dead

he is filled with jealousy because he thought that his wife was cheating on him with the artist who painted the portrait of her

10 of 15

The River God- Stevie Smith

The River God

  • evil irony
  • dramatic monologue
  • dark tones
  • misconduct of power

the positioning of the length of the lines looks like a river flowing when you turn the poem sideways, apart from when Stevie writes "she bathed me..." "so I brought her down here" the first quotation is long and represents the cliff but the second one represents the bottom

11 of 15

The Hunchback in the Park- Dylan Thomas

The Hunchback in the Park

  • lack of punctuation creates tension
  • sympathetic
  • could be the 'Clown Punk'

Dylan Thomas could be writing about himself because when you write, you have a 'hunched back'

12 of 15

The Ruined Maid- Thomas Hardy

The Ruined Maid

  • the speaker is speaking on behalf of other prostitutes
  • 'before&after' version of herself
  • ironic imagery- glamorous&positive but her job is the complete opposite
  • Thomas Hardy uses another character as a source of imagery
  • "she said" is repeated many times to show she doesn't deserve a name

the speaker calls herself 'ruined' because she is disgraced with herself but the other person never calls her that. It shows us what she thinks of herself

13 of 15

Casehistory: Alison (head injury)- U.A. Fanthorpe

Casehistory: Alison (head injury)

  • short stanzas to show how little she remembers
  • vivid at the beginning "she looks at her photograph" then fades, like her memory
  • elegaic tone
  • dramatic monologue

the line pattern is like a heartbeat on a life-support machine when you turn it sideways

14 of 15

On A Portrait Of A Deaf Man- John Betjemen

On A Portrait Of A Deaf Man

  • elegy
  • ballad
  • "I only see decay" like their faith has decayed

there is a lot of sensual diction in it which is ironic because the man is deaf so he cannot hear anything

15 of 15

Comments

Wolfie

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Thank you!

:)

Isabella

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Is this for the 2012 exam? My poems are different to these...

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