Poems of the Decade structure

Edexcel English Literature A Level Paper 3

Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass

• Mock Epic poem

• Free verse - speaker lost in thought, frustration

History

• Verse is irregular and fragmented

• Some parts are in Iambic Pentameter

• Lots of enjambment

• White space - speaker is distracted by planes flying overhead

An Easy Passage

• Single stanza with long enjambed lines

• Vignette

• Lots of enjambment

• Free verse - engrossed in the girl’s task

The Deliverer

• Tercet stanzas → normalises infanticide

• Free verse + no rhyme scheme → conversational

• Poem begins + ends in India → broader cycle has not been broken

The Lammas Hireling

• Free Verse

• Dramatic monologue

• 4 Stanza each with sestets

• Lots of enjambment

To My Nine-Year-Old Self

No rigid rhyme scheme or stanzas → carefree youth

A Minor Role

• Punctuation creates an awkward rhythm

• Lines are enjambed

• No rhyme scheme

• 6 irregular stanzas → random thoughts

The Gun

• No rhyme scheme/ regular structure → gun is not predictable or constrained

The Furthest Distance I’ve Travelled

• Rhyme scheme → AABB

• Half rhymes → conversational

• Lack of meter → conversational

• Varying stanza lengths → novelty of travels

Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn

• Based on John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn

• Ekphrastic poem → praising art

• Structure is very traditional

• Iambic pentameter

• Rhyme scheme = ababcdedce

Giuseppe

• Six irregular stanzas + line length

• Free verse and enjambment creates a steady, sinister pace

• No rhyme scheme makes it seem more like a nightmare

Out of the bag

• Divided into 4 parts

• Part one: 13 stanzas, all tercets except one

• Part two: 10 stanzas

• Part three: 4 tercets

• Part four: 5 tercets

• Each part is a different train of thought

• Use of colloquial language brings childhood to life

• Enjambment creates moments of surprise and suspense

• Recalls scenes from his boyhood

• Free verse creates an intimate, confessional quality

• Autobiographical

Effects

• One continuous stanza for 50 lines

• Only 2 sentences

• Internal monologue explores memory

• Sprawling punctuation

• 1st half → Mother learns she should have appreciated her husband

• 2nd Half → Son learns he should have appreciated his mother

Genetics

• Iambic pentameter is deliberate and lyrical like a heartbeat

• Poem’s format is a villanelle → 5 tercets followed by a single quatrain. The 1st and 3rd lines of the 1st tercet recur alternately and form the final couplet

• Parallel grammar = combination of parents

• Villanelle is poetry equivalent of double helix of DNA

• Slant rhymes = not identical like children

From the Journal of a Disappointed Man

• No rhyme scheme

• 11 quatrains

• Title is from Barbellion who was too disabled to sign up to war

Look we have come to Dover

• Uses language in an unconventional way that a native would not do → carving their space in the language

• Dramatic monologue

• 5 quintains → perhaps 5 oceans?

• Structure of stanzas are identical

• If you turn the poem sideways it looks like cliffs/waves

• Enjambed lines create a sense of urgency

• Lengthening lines = flow of tide/movement of people

Eat Me

• ten rigid tercets - controlling atmosphere

• dramatic monologue

• no strict meter - calm, conversational.

• slant AAABBBCCC rhyme scheme - control

Material

• Nine fairly consistent octaves

• Occasional iambic tetrameter - nostalgia for the past

• ABCBDEFE rhyme - like a nursery rhyme = childhood/past

Please Hold

• Free verse - conversational, frustration.

• Lines are fairly uniform in length - static, predictable future.

• Same words at the end of lines - technology is tedious, flat, repetitive

• No rhyme scheme - mundane, colloquial

On Her Blindness

• 22/23 stanzas are couplets - measured, restrained

• Free verse - conversational

• Same line lengths often enjambed - reflects how her mother moved meticulously through the world.

• No rhyme scheme