GCSE poetry anthology

Song: Love Armed by Aphra Behn

• Love personified as tyrant → extended war imagery (darts, triumph, harm)

• Volta in stanza 2 → shift from universal love to personal address (“thy / thee”)

• “From me / From thee” parallelism → emotional imbalance

• Love as constructed power → humans “arm” and create the god of love

• Challenges romantic ideals → sincerity suffers, detachment wins

A Different History by Sujata Bhatt

---

1. Sacredness & Reverence – books, paper, trees, and Sarasvati symbolize respect for knowledge, nature, and divine presence.

2. Colonial / Linguistic Critique – English as the “oppressor’s tongue” shows paradoxical adoption of a language used to dominate.

3. Volta / Structure – first half playful/mystical and didactic; second half reflective/mournful on oppression and cultural memory.

4. Imagery & Techniques – anaphora, personification, violent imagery, and enjambment emphasize moral instruction and colonial trauma.

5. Themes of Paradox & Resilience – oppression, cultural assimilation, and love of the oppressor’s language highlight complexity of postcolonial identity.

6. Cultural identity of her and her relatives being explored

The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake

1. Blake uses the chimney sweeper’s innocent voice to expose how society disguises child exploitation as happiness and obedience.

2. The contrast between purity (“snow”) and corruption (“black thing”) symbolises how industrial society stains childhood innocence.

3. Religious imagery and references to the Church reveal Blake’s attack on institutional hypocrisy that enables suffering.

4. The poem’s simple, song-like structure mirrors nursery rhymes, highlighting how misery is normalised and made acceptable.

5. The final stanza widens blame from parents to ‘God, Priest and King’, presenting suffering as a product of systemic power.

Where I come from by Elizabeth Brewster

1. The poet suggests identity is shaped by place, as people “carry” landscapes and environments within them.

2. Sensory imagery, especially smell, is used to make places vivid and emotionally memorable.

3. The contrast between crowded cities and rural landscapes highlights different ways of living and thinking.

4. The shift to “Where I come from” personalises the poem, turning it into a reflection on memory and belonging.

5. Seasonal imagery, particularly ice and thaw, symbolises emotional restraint and emotional release

6. The poem’s structure moves from broad, general observations to a personal, reflective ending, mirroring the speaker’s journey from shared human identity to individual memory.

Report to Wordsworth, by Boey Kim Cheng

1. The poem directly addresses Wordsworth to contrast Romantic reverence for nature with modern humanity’s environmental destruction.

2. Violent imagery (“laid waste”, “smothered”, “entombed”) presents nature as a victim of human exploitation rather than a source of inspiration.

3. The repeated use of mythological sea gods shows that even ancient symbols of natural power are helpless against modern pollution.

4. The poem criticises humanity’s greed by presenting “insatiate man” as an active predator destroying a passive, weakened nature.

5. Religious language suggests that environmental damage is so severe it threatens not only nature but faith, morality, and civilisation itself.

6. Written as a Petrarchan sonnet, the poem ironically uses a traditional form associated with love and beauty to convey environmental collapse, emphasising how far humanity has fallen from Romantic ideals.

Lament by Gillian Clarke

---

1. Litany (repetition) of victims (human and animal) emphasises scale of suffering.

2. Personification of nature shows dignity despite harm.

3. War and environmental imagery juxtaposed to show interconnected violence.

4. Repetition of “For” creates solemn, chant-like rhythm.

5. Final lines suggest collapse of communication, culture, and moral order.

6. Free verse and enjambment reflect chaos and uncontrolled destruction.

The Cockroach by Kevin Halligan

1. The cockroach’s restless pacing mirrors human anxiety and self-reflection.

2. Detailed observation of movement (“crooked rings”, “flip…scratch his wings”) highlights obsession and unease.

3. Questions of fate and morality (“due payment for some vicious crime”) introduce existential reflection.

4. The final line (“I thought I recognised myself”) links the insect’s behaviour to human introspection and alienation.

5. Everyday domestic imagery contrasts with deeper psychological and moral themes.

6. Written in regular quatrains with subtle enjambment, reflecting controlled observation but underlying tension.

7. Shifts from external description to internal reflection, giving a sudden, ironic revelation at the end

Follower by Seamus Heaney

1. The father is depicted as strong, skilled, and authoritative, mastering both horse and land.

2. Farming imagery (“horse-plough”, “sod rolled over”) reflects hard work and connection to nature.

3. The child admires and aspires to emulate his father, highlighting generational influence.

4. Reversal of roles at the end (“It is my father who keeps stumbling / Behind me”) shows aging, mortality, and role reversal.

5. Themes include memory, admiration, family bonds, and inevitability of change.

6. Written in regular quatrains with enjambment, reflecting continuity and the flow of work on the land.

7. Shifts from childhood observation to adult reflection, creating a reflective, nostalgic tone.

Storyteller by Liz Lochhead

1. The poem celebrates the storyteller, showing her work as vital, patient, and sustaining.

2. Domestic imagery (“scoured table”, “swept kitchen”, “cracked delft”) grounds the stories in everyday life.

3. Repetition of actions (grating corn, piecing patchwork, darning) mirrors the rhythm of storytelling and tradition.

4. Stories are portrayed as living threads that persist, passing from one generation to the next (“hung themselves…till they flew again”).

5. Themes include memory, oral tradition, female labor, and the power of storytelling to shape culture.

6. Free verse with enjambment reflects the flowing, continuous nature of oral storytelling.

7. Long lines mirror the stretching out of narrative and time, reinforcing the immersive quality of the stories.

Before the Sun by Charles Mungoshi

1. The poem celebrates childhood wonder and simple pleasures, like chopping wood and eating maize.

2. Vivid sensory imagery (sight, smell, touch) immerses the reader in a rural morning.

3. The interaction with nature (“sun…winks like a grown-up”) reflects connection and harmony with the environment.

4. Repetition of sharing between child and sun emphasizes innocence, generosity, and ritual.

5. Themes include growth, rhythm of rural life, and the joy of ordinary moments.

6. Free verse with short, enjambed lines mirrors the natural, flowing rhythm of morning tasks and observations.

7. Repetition (“this one for the sun, this one for me”) creates ritualistic, meditative rhythm, reinforcing sharing and connection.

A Married State by Katherine Philips

1. The poem contrasts married life (full of care and difficulty) with virginity (innocent, carefree, and content).

2. Married women face pressures from husbands, childbirth, children, and worldly responsibilities.

3. Virginity is idealised as freedom from fear, pain, and distraction from spiritual life.

4. The poem uses direct advice to women, reflecting a moral and prescriptive tone.

5. Themes include gender roles, freedom vs. duty, and the costs of marriage.

6. The poem criticises religion at the end, since leading apes in hell was an unmarried woman’s punishment.

7. Written as a rhymed, didactic poem (rhyming couplets), reflecting moral instruction and order.

8. Satirical and ironic tone emerges through contrast and exaggeration, highlighting the difficulties of marriage.

From An Essay On Man by Alexander Pope

1. The poem explores human nature, presenting mankind as a “middle state” between greatness and weakness.”

2. Humans are intellectually capable but morally and physically limited, caught between knowledge and doubt.

3. Life is characterised by contradiction and struggle, as humans reason but often err.

4. Pope presents humans as both rulers (“great lord of all things”) and vulnerable (“prey to all”), highlighting the tension between power and frailty.

5. Themes include reason vs. folly, pride vs. humility, and the paradoxical nature of human existence.

6. Written in heroic couplets (rhymed iambic pentameter), giving the poem order and authority that mirrors its philosophical content.

7. The cumulative listing of contradictions (“Born but to die…Chaos of thought and passion”) uses parallelism and balanced phrasing to emphasise human complexity.

Carpet Weavers, Morroco

1. Children are portrayed as weavers and creators, symbolising skill, tradition, and cultural continuity.

2. Vivid weaving imagery (“flickering knots”, “lace the dark-rose veins”) highlights patience, artistry, and meticulous labour.

3. The carpet’s journey represents the movement of culture and faith, linking domestic craft to communal and spiritual life.

4. Spiritual and educational metaphors (“school of days”, “servants of the mosque”) emphasise the children’s role in shaping both past and future.

5. Themes include creativity, learning, tradition, cultural memory, and the passage of time.

6. Free verse with enjambment mirrors the continuous flow of weaving and time.

7. The opening phrase “The children are” in key stanzas frames the poem around their activity, giving a ritualistic, cumulative rhythm that mirrors the persistence of tradition.

Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare

1. The speaker compares the beloved to a summer’s day but finds them more temperate and enduring, elevating their beauty.

2. Natural imagery (“rough winds,” “summer’s lease”) highlights the impermanence of nature.

3. The poem contrasts temporal beauty with eternal poetic immortality, showing poetry’s power to preserve.

4. Death is personified and rendered powerless against the “eternal lines” of the poem.

5. Themes include love, beauty, time, mortality, and the enduring power of poetry.

6. Written in a Shakespearean sonnet form (14 lines, iambic pentameter, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme), creating order and harmony that mirrors the idealised subject.

7. The final rhyming couplet delivers a powerful resolution, emphasising poetry’s ability to grant immortality.

Hunting Snake, by Judith Wright

1. The poem captures a moment of awe and encounter with nature, showing respect for the snake’s presence.

2. Vivid imagery (“sun glazed his curves of diamond scale”) emphasises beauty, power, and motion.

3. The snake’s hunting behaviour reflects the natural instincts and life cycle, showing nature’s impartiality.

4. Human observers are silent and still, highlighting themes of humility and reverence before the natural world.

5. Themes include nature, instinct, observation, respect, and human connection to the environment.

6. Written in free verse with quatrains, creating a calm, observational rhythm that mirrors the snake’s movement.

7. Use of enjambment and flowing lines guides the reader’s eye along the snake’s path, immersing us in the scene.