Poems

The poem opens with some rich description of a swampy area where flax (a kind of plant) grows. Heaney describes the flies buzzing, and how the sun beats down on the mucky soil. He pays particular attention to the slimy frogspawn (what eventually becomes tadpoles, then frogs). This sparks a memory for the speaker, and he begins to talk about how in school, his teacher had students collect the gooey frogspawn in jars to watch it turn to tadpoles as part of a science lesson about frogs.

Then we're snapped into the present. One hot, steamy and stinky day, the speaker follows the sound of croaking frogs to its source. He sees more frogs than he's ever seen amongst the frogspawn (no, this is not a scene from a horror movie). They're croaking and slapping in the flax dam. Not surprisingly, he gets grossed out—so much so that he freaks out and runs away.

The narrator of the poem dismisses clichéd ideas of love with the two single line stanzas that begin with the word "not". There is an attitude in the poem that normal Valentines are not as honest as this one. The two single line stanzas in the middle of the poem contrast the idea of truthfulness with clichéd cards or kissograms. It is also more cynical about love: rather than promising to last forever, this Valentine will merely last as long as the two of them are possessive and faithful, like the onion. This is an unusual attitude for a love poem.

This, combined with the theme of love as being dangerous, makes for an unsettling tone to the poem. However, there is a sense that this is a more genuine and useful present, which suggests a practical love. The offer of a wedding-ring, in an offhand manner, also reinforces the idea that truthful love is the better sort.

Sonnet 43 presents the idea of love as powerful and all-encompassing; her love enables her to reach otherwise impossible extremes:

The poem is autobiographical: it refers to "my old griefs". (Browning had strong disagreements with her parents and was eventually disinherited.) The passion she applied to these "griefs" has been applied more positively to her love, demonstrating that she sees love as a positive, powerful and life-changing force.

Barrett Browning mentions her loss of religious faith in this sonnet: "I love thee with a love I seemed to lose/With my lost Saints!" Her lover becomes a spiritual saviour. She is not totally without faith, however: "if God choose,/I shall but love thee better after death". Here she asserts the idea that if God controls her future then she hopes to be reunited with her lover in the afterlife.

Sheers reflects on how the events of that week in 1916 have been buried and forgotten. The bits of bone that are turned up seem just the same as old bits of china – curious relics of history. The violence of the day, the shattering of the bones by gunfire and mortar shell is merely "mimicked" by the flint. Their skeletons even look almost comic.

Sheers could have simply retold the historical events of the battle. By approaching the subject in this slightly strange way, though, Sheers highlights the injustice of history. The poem therefore is about offering some kind of justice or redemption for the dead – and to the land that has held them. By being 'unearthed' the bones have not just literally come free of the ground, they have in some way become themselves again. They have become part of a poem that gives them a voice they have lacked all these years.

In Sheers' work, the three elements have become reconciled: the earth is free of the bones and the bones have become the people they once were. He writes it like a hymn to their memory – but a hymn they sing themselves.

Context

.He writes about places and landscapes but is really interested in people who live or have lived within them. The history and identity of Wales has formed a large part of his development as a poet and writer. It is people, their lives and their families that provide most of the focus for his work, though, especially the difficulties people face in simply trying to live.

Context

American poet, Rita Dove is married to fellow-writer Fred Viebahn and Cozy Apologia seems to be an affectionate tribute to him. The poem notes details of a couple's domestic life as writers, 'Twin desks, computers, hardwood floors'. It is set against the arrival of Hurricane Floyd, a powerful storm which hit the east coast of the USA in 1999. This factual, real-life context supports the idea this is an autobiographical poem.

Structure

The poem is composed of three 10-line stanzas. Stanza one is made up of five rhyming couplets, to make a rhyme scheme aabbccddee. This rhyme scheme starts to break down in stanza two, as if reflecting the disruption of the oncoming storm. By stanza three, a new rhyme scheme has begun to emerge: ababccdddd. Perhaps the poet intends the reader to see this suggestion of order and its progressive disruption as a way of representing the oncoming storm on the page.

There are four stresses in most lines, but some lines have five stresses instead. Rita Dove sometimes varies this pattern, and the stresses do not always fall in a strict rhythm. The effect on the reader is to create an impression of a relaxed, informal voice – perhaps a thoughtful one, wandering from idea to idea.

Context

The speaker informs his audience what to think should he die. He tells them only to consider that a portion of some foreign field will be "forever England" as a result of his death. The soldier, who was raised and nurtured by his country, England, will be buried in the earth. After he dies, the soldier will go to a peaceful, English heaven, where he will re-experience all his English memories. Good times! Right?

Context

Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was born in Yorkshire, in the North of England, and grew up in the countryside. After serving in the RAF for two years, he won a scholarship to Cambridge University where he studied Archaeology and Anthropology. The themes of the countryside, human history and mythology therefore already deeply influenced his imagination by the time he started writing poetry as a student.

He made his name as a poet in the late 1950s and 1960s and also wrote many well-known children's books including The Iron Man (which was filmed as the Iron Giant). It is for his poetry that he remains important. He was poet laureate from 1984 until his death from cancer in 1998.

Structure

• The first two stanzas are about his physical superiority – both in what his body is like and where he can sit.

• Stanzas three and four reveal his power of nature, and how he holds everything, including life and death, in his claws.

• The final two stanzas form a kind of justification for his actions. He explains why he is not just right because of physical superiority but also the way he acts without deception (and he has the support of the sun to prove it!).

Context

Keats is generally classified as one of the Romantic poets. Romanticism was a general artistic movement (literature, music, the visual arts, etc.) which dominated European culture from the last part of the 18th century until the mid-19th century. Among its key aspects were:

• a deep appreciation of the power and beauty of nature
• a recognition of the influence of the senses and of personal emotion
• an understanding of the deeper meaning of life

All of these may be seen at work in Keats’ To Autumn which reflects on mankind’s relationship with a particular time of year. He wrote the poem inspired by a walk he had taken through the countryside; it is, therefore, a highly personal response.

Keats initially trained as a surgeon but gave it up to write poetry. Six months after completing To Autumn, he experienced the first signs of the tuberculosis that would end his life. In the poem it is almost as though the medically-trained poet has understood that his life will soon end and he is preparing himself for death. Keats died in 1821 aged just 25. Despite his short life, Keats has had a major impact on poetry and is regarded as one of the most important poets in literary history.

Context

William Blake was a poet and artist who specialised in illuminated texts, often of a religious nature. He rejected established religion for various reasons. One of the main ones was the failure of the established Church to help children in London who were forced to work. Blake lived and worked in the capital, so was arguably well placed to write clearly about the conditions people who lived there faced.

Structure

As the title of the collection suggests, London is presented in a very regular way, much like a song. There is a strict abab rhyme scheme in each of the four stanzas.

The four stanzas offer a glimpse of different aspects of the city, almost like snapshots seen by the speaker during his "wander thro'" the streets.

Context