Poems of the decade summaries

Provide a one sentence summary of To My Nine-Year-Old Self

A woman reflects on her childhood innocence but views it as a good thing, choosing to keep her child self naive.

Analyse the form and structure of To My Nine-Year-Old Self

• the poem is in free verse which represents the adult being freed by conversing with the child / mimics freedom of childhood

• Dramatic monologue

• Stanza four marks a change in tone

  • 1-3 carry an intimate and reflective tone

  • 4-6 carry a more regretful and logical tone

• Consistent stanza length

List the key quotes from To My Nine-Year-Old Self

• “A bag of sherbet lemons”

• “That summer of ambition created an ice-lolly factory, a wasp trap and a den by the cesspit”

• “You would rather run than walk, rather climb than run, rather leap from a height than anything”

• “I leave you in the ecstasy of concentration slowly peeling a ripe scab from your knee to taste it on your tongue”

Give important context for To My Nine-Year-Old Self

• dunmore is known for her lyrical depth and sensory precision

• Dunmore frequently explores themes of history and the natural environment

• Dunmore also often sets her narratives in the past, causing the speaker to take a reflective tone

Provide a one sentence summary for Furthest Distance I’ve Travelled

A woman reflects on her youth travelling, seemingly missing it but ultimately finds the relationships she had more fulfilling.

Provide important context for Furthest Distance I’ve Travelled

• leonita flynn is influenced by themes of youth, transient lifestyles and contemporary anxieties

• She frequently uses travel as a metaphor for wider life experiences

• Poem is influenced by the growing trend of backpacking (increased massively in the 60s)

Analyse the form and structure of Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled

• free verse → representative of freedom of travel and youth / spontaneity

• AABB rhyming couplet scheme but the B rhymes are often slant → rhyming couplets mimic youth and slant rhymes reinforce spontaneity

• Eight quatrains but with largely variable line lengths → illusion of predictability → mimics youth

• Singular speaker British or Irish from colloquialisms → informal tone

• Large amounts of enjambment → years and cultures flow together

What are the key quotes from Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled?

• “The way my spine curved under it like a meridian”

• “During routine evictions, i discover alien pants, cinema stubs, the throwaway comment - on a post-it - or a tiny stowaway pressed flower amid bottom drawers”

• “The furthest distances I’ve travelled have been those between people. And what survives of holidaying briefly in their lives”

Provide a one sentence summary of An Easy Passage

A girl climbs back into her house having been out with her friend and it becomes a metaphor for adolescence

Analyse the form and structure of An Easy Passage by Copus

• a single 38 line stanza → lack of separation between childhood and adulthood → liminality → march of time → anxiety + aging + insecurity

• Free verse with no clear meter or rhyme scheme → conversational and colloquial → speaker attempting to relate to the younger girls → attempt to regain childhood

• Speaker is unclear → older version of one of the girls? Observer? Only certainty is that she is an adult woman

• Lots of enjambment → furthers the lack os structure and rapid movements of the poem

List the symbols of An Easy Passage by Copus

• the house

  • The girl straddles childhood and adulthood by climbing the porch roof but by returning inside she chooses to remain within childhood for longer

  • Could argue the house is symbolic of childhood, the friend of adolescence and secretary of adulthood

• The ‘easy passage’ of the girl back into the house

  • Travel back into the security of childhood

    • Becoming more difficult and requires more work showing how soon she will be unable to

List the key quotes from An Easy Passage by Copus

• “Like the flash or armaments before dropping gracefully back into the shade of the house”

• “Leaning into the warm flank of the house”

• “Still crouching, the grains of asphalt hot beneath her toes and fingertips, a square of petrified beach”

• “Far too, most far, from the flush-faced secretary”

Provide a one sentence summary of Effects

A man reflects on his life with his mother after she has died

Provide the key context for Effects

• Jenkins described writing the poem as cathartic

• Jenkins’ poems often focus on family, childhood and grief

• In his poetry, his suburban English upbringing and his mother’s death feature heavily

• Jenkins was influenced by the movement (rejected modernism and focused on post World War Two landscape)

Analyse the form and structure of Effects

• single stanza made of two sentences - reflects the two lives which ended (mother and father)

  • Emphasises the overwhelming nature of emotions

  • Forces connection despite distance

  • Shows the unfolding of the speaker’s mind in tandem with the deterioration of his mother

• Heavy enjambment = life continuing / panicked tone

• Deeply personal tone

• Irregular rhyme scheme echoes unpredictable emotions

• Form is uncontrolled, much like emotions

List the key quotes from Effects

• “I held her hand that was always scarred”

• “They had taken off her rings”

• “Scent-sprays, tortoise shell combs, a snap or two”

• “Night after night and stared unseeing at the television, at her inner weather”

• “On the hand i held, a blotched and crinkled hand”

• “Little bag of her effects to me”

Provide a one sentence summary of On Her Blindness

A child reflects on his mother’s blindness and attempted stoicism towards it after her death

Provide key context for On Her Blindness

• Thorpe’s own mother was blind

• It is an autobiographical poem, which grants it a deeply personal tone

• The title “on her blindness” is an allusion to Milton’s sonnet “on his blindness” wherein Milton laments but accepts his blindness as a part of god’s will

  • Milton argues for stoicism; Thorpe rebuts this

Analyse the form and structure of On Her Blindness

• free verse with no solid rhyme scheme → conversational tone

• 22/23 stanzas have two lines and line lengths are relatively consistent

  • Son restraining his grief at his mother’s death → much like the mother did with her blindness

  • Mother and son together until her death (2 lines) until son is alone (1 line stanza)

• There is heavy enjambment and minimal punctuation

  • Mother’s long suffering nature

  • Mirrors how disorientating blindness can be (reinforced by caesura)

  • Highlights poem’s emotional intensity

List key quotes from On Her Blindness

• “My mother could not bear being blind, to be honest”

• “One tends to hear publicly from those who bear it like a roman, or somehow find joy in the fight”

• “If i gave up hope of a cure, I’d bump myself off”

• “Saw things she couldn’t see”

• “Dying has made her no more sightless, but now she can’t pretend”

Provide a one sentence summary of A Minor Role

Someone reflects on the difficulties of their life having (or caring for someone who has) a serious / chronic illness, using an acting conceit to comment on societal pretences

Provide the key contextual details for A Minor Role

• fanthorpe worked in a hospital and has stated this inspired her to start writing

• Fanthorpe also frequently suffered from ill health

• Her poetry mocks ideas of British stoicism

Analyse the form and structure of A Minor Role

• free verse

  • Shaggy style at odds with the tight control the speaker otherwise shows

  • Carries the contours of a casual conversation → confessional tone

    • Speaker trying to maintain light attitude / avoid talking / maintain civility

  • Emphasises the unpredictable nature of illness

• No rhyme scheme → desire to omit decorative patterns → only do what is necessary → speaker’s exhaustion

• Lots of caesura → speaker needs breaks as tired

• Lots of enjambment → ceaseless onslaught of suffering / overwhelming nature of dealing with illness

• Every stanza ends with a hard stop → regain power from illness

List the key quotes from A Minor Role

• “I’m best observed on stage”

• “My heart’s in the unobtrusive, the waiting room roles”

• “Asking pointed questions politely; checking dosages, dates; getting on terms with receptionists”

• “Learn to conjugate all the genres of misery: tears, torpor, boredom, lassitude, yearnings for a simpler illness, like a broken leg”

• “No, it wouldn’t! I’m here to make you believe in life”

Provide a one sentence summary of Material by Barber

A woman reflects on the passing of her mother and how unfeeling she feels modern society is in comparison to the society of her youth

Provide the key context for material by Barber

• barber was born in Washington but had English parents nd grew up in Essex

• Barber claims poems are intensely personal → mother died in freak accident in 2002

• Barber claims the poem is about material losses (losses that matter)

• Barber says patterns are constants within poems

Examine the form and structure of material by Barber

• all stanzas bar 7 and 6 are octanes

  • Stanzas 6 and 7 are 9 and 7 lines respectively→ could be viewed as getting lost in the past and stealing time from the present as a result

• Stanzas are self-contained → modern society divided

  • 5 and 6 use enjambment

• Lots of colloquial language → modern and conversational

• Bouncy meter (often irregular iambic tetrameter) and steady rhyme scheme (alternating rhyme scheme but often slant) and formal stanza structure

  • These contrast each other

    • Create tension between past and present

    • Reflects how unsuccessful the speaker’s attempt to exist in both past and present

Provide the key quotes for material by Barber

• “She’d have one always up her sleeve”

• “Greengrocer George with his dodgy foot delivering veg from a comma van is history”

• “The innocence i want my brood to cling on to like ten bob notes was killed in TV’s lassitude”

• “There’s never a hanky up my sleeve”

• “I miss material handkerchiefs, their soft and hidden history”

• “This is your material to do with, daughter, what you will”

Provide a one sentence summary for Genetics by Morissey

Someone reflects on how they serve as a symbol for their parent’s love, even after they have separated, finding comfort in this fact

Provide the key context for Genetics by Morissey

• Morrisey was born in Belfast in Northern Ireland

• She was well travelled

• She was Belfast’s poet laureate in 2013xe

examine the form and structure of Genetics by Morissey

• variation of the villanelle form

  • 19 lines in 3 line stanzas with a final quatrain

  • 2 refrains that repeat with variation throughout

    • The untraditional villanelle form reflects the untraditional nature of the speakers family

  • The poem is repetitive → people reflect their parents

Key quotes from Genetics by Morissey

“My fathers in my fingers but my mothers in my palms”

“My body is their marriage register”

“I’ll bequeath my finery’s if you bequeath your palms”

“In me they touch where fingers link to palms”

Provide a one sentence summary of Out Of The Bag by Heaney

the poem explores childhood wonder and the mystery of birth, blending personal memory with classical and mythical allusions to reflect on the power of language and transformation

provide the key context for Out Of The Bag by Heaney

• Heaney is one of teh most influential poets of our time

• He is an Irish catholic

• He is one of nine children

• Highly decorated as a poet

• Worked as a farm hand before becoming a poet

Provide the key themes of Out Of The Bag by Heaney

Childhood innocence and imagination

Time

Power and authority

Gender and motherhood

Memory and myth making

Class and social hierarchy

Faith and healing

Creation and creativity

Examine the form and structure of Out of the Bag by Heaney

• 4 distinct sections

  • Part one: heaney’s childhood obsession with Dr Kerlin

  • Part two: adult Heaney reflects on visiting sacred healing sites

  • Part three: spiritual experience of visiting temples

  • Part four: return to the childish tone, reveals his mother told him the story of the doctor bringing the baby

• Heavy enjambment

• Free verse (tercets)

• Structure mirrors progressions of thoughts and memory

Provide a one sentence summary of Please Hold by O’Driscoll

A man laments the shift of society towards modernity, as is marked by automated phone calls, growing increasingly angry at the state of the world

Provide the key context for Please Hold by O’Driscoll

• influenced by modernist poetry

  • Plays with repetition

  • Tests pure emotions with irony

  • Largely free verse

• Notorious for combining dark humour and lyrical verse

  • Uses humour to balance anger

analyse the form and structure of Please Hold by O’Driscoll

• free verse

• Tercet at end

  • Draws attention to those few lines

Examine the key allusion in Please Hold by O’Driscoll

• Mozart allusion

  • 1700s classical composer

  • Used to emphasise how far humanity has come

  • Some real life systems use this song (most common with local councils to disarm angry people) → cultural reference

  • Spirited and happy music juxtaposes the monotonous robotic call

    • Highlights the jarring disconnect found in modern life

provide the key quotes for Please Hold by O’Driscoll

• “This is the future, my wife says”

• “Please hold  Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Please hold. Eine Kleine nachtmusik. Please hold. Eine fucking Kleine nacht music”

• “Please hold. Please grow old. Please grow cold. Please do what you’re told. Grow old. Grow cold. This is the future. Please hold”

Provide a one sentence summary for Look We Having Coming To Dover

The poem examines an illegal immigrants journey to and life within England, reflecting the harshness of their existence and the hope they maintain

Provide the key context for Look We Having Coming To Dover by Nagra

• poem written to be in dialogue with ‘Dover beach’ by Arnold, which laments the retreat of religion from England and the chaos imagined to follow

• Daljeet Nagra

  • Born in London to punjabi Sikh parents who immigrated to England in the 50s

  • Often writes in “punglish” (a type of English spoken by punjabi parents)

  • Highlights the struggle to reconcile the inside with the outside, as well as India and England

provide the key themes in Look We Having Coming To Dover

• immigration

• Modern society

• English identity

• Social issues

• Wealth

Analyse the form and structure of Look We Having Coming To Dover

• speaker is ambiguous

• Five stanzas containing five lines each → rhythmic structure → no escape for the immigrants

• Begins with an epigraph to Dover Beach by Arnold (ironic usage)

Key symbolism in Look We Having Coming To Dover

Dover Cliffs:

• During WW2, Dover Cliffs were the first thing returning soldiers saw

  • Quintessentially British symbol of safety / decay

• Cliffs are white (innocence)

• Dover considered a gateway to immigration / boundary against ‘outsiders’ / link to outside world (port town)

give the key quotes from Look We Having Coming To Dover

• “Go full of surf phlegmed by cushy come-and-go tourist prow’d on the cruisers, lording over the ministered waves”

• “Poling sparks across pylon and pylon”

• “Banking on the miracle of the dun - span its rainbow, passport us to life”

• “Blair’d in the cash of our beeswax’s cars, our crash”

• “East, babbling our lingoes, flecked by the chalk of Britannia”

Give a one sentence summary of The Deliverer by Doshi

The poem contrasts life in rural India with that in America, exploring the situation for omen in rural India through the reflections of an adopted child.

Provide the key themes of Look We Having Coming To Dover

• motherhood

• Abuse

• Poverty

• Childhood

• Modernity

• Time

• Cultural identity

Examine the form and structure of Look We Having Coming To Dover

• free verse → lack of rhyme → blunt and conversational tone

• Divided into three distinct sections and caesura → emphasises division between American child and their heritage

• Enjambment → life flows together within the cycle

• Tercets → unemotional tone of the poem

• Italicised headings → juxtaposition of the two geographical settings

Provide the key quotes for Look We Having Coming To Dover

• “Because they were crippled or dark or girls”

• “They are American so they know something about ceremony and tradition, about doing things right”

• “But they are crying. We couldn’t stop crying, my mother said”

• “Sees how she’s passed from woman to woman. She returns to twilight corners”

• “Trudge home to lie down for their men again”

Provide a one sentence summary of History by Burnside

A man reflects on 9/11, with it altering his view of childhood, humanity and nature

Provide the key context for History

• Burnside died in May 2024

• Born in Scotland, but moved away then returned

• Poem is set very close to the RAF base

Provide the key themes for History

• society

• Memory

• Humanity

• Fear / dread

• Nature

• Childhood

• Uncertainty

Examine the form and structure of History

• heavy use of enjambment → symbolic of how people should be connected

• 9 stanzas of variable length with vastly changing line lengths

  • Fractured lines embody the fragmentation of society

  • Readers eyes mimic the movements of the tide

• Poem in free verse

  • Stanza four → iambic pentameter → another piece of history

• No rhyme scheme

Provide the key quotes for History by Burnside

• “The sand spinning off in ribbons”

• “The news in my mind, and the muffled dread of what may come”

• “How to be alive in all this gazed upon and cherished world and do no harm”

• “His parents on the dune socks with a kite plugged into the sky all nerve and line: patient, afraid”

Give a one sentence summary of Journal of a Disappointed Man

A man watches workmen attempting to drive a pile into the ground and reflects on masculinity, contrasting their traditional stoic form of masculinity with his more modern intellectual version of it, but feels disappointed and unfulfilled when the men never finish their task and he never talks to them.

Provide the key context for Journal of a Disappointed Man

• written by sir Andrew motion

  • He said he wants his poems to be ”clear as water”

  • He uses an understated meditative style which can be linked back to the works of Wordsworth

Examine the form and structure of Journal of a Disappointed Man

• free verse

• Tightly controlled quatrains → reflects the cycle of men being controlled by gender expectations

• Enjambment embodies a desire for freedom from the cycle and chasing connection -> also often used to express intense emotions hints at how the man wants to express emotions but can’t

• Lack of rhyme scheme makes the poem appear unadulterated → feels more genuine and like a diary entry

Provide the key quotes from Journal of a Disappointed Man

• “The men; very powerful men / very ruminative and silent men”

• “If they talked at all it was like this: / “let go” or “hold tight”: all monosyllables”

• “Every one of the monsters was silent on the subject”

• “That left / the pile still in the air, and me, of course”

Provide a one sentence summary of The Gun by Feaver

Provide the key context for The Gun by Feaver

• Feaver grew up in Nottingham in a house full of women

• Her work focuses on how the repression of women’s creativity leads to violence (“domestic gothic”)

• When living in rural Scotland, her own husband bought a gun -> she herself holds similar attitudes to the speaker of the poem (“the acceptance of death… sharpens our sense of living life to the full”)

Give the key themes of The Gun by Feaver

• Transformations

• Relationships

• Death / mortality

• Life

• Control

• Violence

Examine the form and structure of The Gun by Feaver

• free verse

  • Ironic → contrasts with the tight control the gun holds over the couple

  • Malleable like the speaker’s attitude towards violence

• 30 lines in varied length stanzas

• Enjambment mimics the fluidity of the speaker’s voice

Give the key quotes from The Gun by Feaver

• “Bringing a gun into a house changes it“

• “There’s a spring in your step; your eyes gleam like when sex was fresh“

• “A gun brings a house alive“

• “Excited as if the king of death had arrived to feast, stalking out of winter woods, his black mouth sprouting golden crocuses“

Provide a one sentence summary of Chainsaw vs The Pampas Grass by Armitage

a quirky, poetic exploration of nature's resilience and the clash between human intervention and the wild, symbolized through the struggle between a chainsaw and the stubborn pampas grass

Give the key context for Chainsaw vs The Pampas Grass by Armitage

• Armitage was born in Marsden in North Yorkshire -> northern attitude / slang frequently used in poems

• He is the current poet laureatE

• Previously a probation officer who focused on the impact of televised violence on young offender

• Darkly comic poet who uses young and urban imagery

Give the key themes from Chainsaw vs the Pampas Grass by Armitage

• violence

• Nature

• Relationships

• Gender

• Power dynamics

• Cycles

Examine the form and structure of Chainsaw vs the Pampas Grass

• free verse → no rhyme scheme / meter and varying line lengths

  • Allows the poem to be organic → mimics the speakers emotional journey

Give the key quotes from Chainsaw vs the Pampas Grass

• The chainsaw with its perfect disregard, its mood to tangle with cloth, or jewellery or hair

• The pampas grass, taking the warmth and light from cuttings and bulbs, sunning itself, stealing the show

• By June it was riding high in its saddle, wearing a new crown

• The seamless urge to persist was as far as it got

Provide a one sentence summary for The Lammas Hireling by DUHIG

"The Lammas Hireling" is a dark, lyrical poem that explores themes of guilt, loss, and the consequences of a man's tragic actions, as he reflects on his relationship with a young farm laborer and the mysterious death that follows

Provide the key context for The Lammas Hireling by Duhig

• duhig was a British - Irish poet

• Lammas festival was a pagan festival around harvest

• the 8th of 11th, which he claimed made him feel like the middle, forgotten child, which he often explores in his poetry

• He sent 15 years working with homeless people

Provide the key themes from The Lammas Hireling by duhig

• Violence

• Guilt

• Sin / religion

• Reality / uncertainty

• Transgression

Examine the form and structure of The Lammas Hireling by Duhig

• 4 sextets, none of which are self contained -> poem becomes fraught like the speakers mind

• Free verse -> lots of enjambment and Caesura -> poem is fragmented like the speaker’s mind

• Dramatic monologue -> unreliable narrator

Provide the key quotes from The Lammas Hireling by Duhig

• Disturbed from dreams of my dear late wife

• Fox trap biting his ankle

• Bless me father for I have sinned. It has been an hour since my last confession

• To go into the hare gets you muckle sorrow, the wisdom runs, muckle care

Provide a one sentence summary of Guiseppe by Ford

The poem explores ideas of alienation, control, morality, guilt, war, and violence, through describing how the only mermaid in the world was eaten through the eyes of the titular character Guiseppe as he explains the tale to his nephew.

Give the key context for Guiseppe by Ford

• Ford has asperbergers syndrome

• Many animals were killed in England at the start of the First World War in an effort to conserve rations for people.

• Sicily was used as a base for the allied invasion of mainland Italy in WW2, whilst Italy was under fascist rule (mussolini)

• Ford was inspired to write the poem after reading a joke that people in Sicily were so hungry they ate everything in the aquarium, including a mermaid

Provide the key themes for Guiseppe by ford

• Alienation

• Morality

• Guilt

• War

• Violence

Examine the form and structure of Guiseppe by Ford

• Lots of enjambment -> rush through the narrative -> guilt

• Free verse -> no rhyme scheme / meter -> variable line length and stanza lengths -> all-consuming guilt

Provide the key quotes from Guiseppe by Ford

• The only captive mermaid in the world was butchered on the dry and dusty ground

• She screamed like a woman in terrible fear

• Starvation forgives men of many things

• The priest who held one of her hands whilst her throat was cut

Provide a one sentence summary of Ode on a Perry Grayson Urn

In Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn, Tim Turnbull uses the traditional ode form to humorously and critically depict modern British life, blending formal language with slang to explore themes of youth culture, consumerism, and the meaning of contemporary society

Give the key context for Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn

• Poem is inspired by Keats’ “ode on a Grecian urn” – it is either a pastiche or a mockery

• Grayson perry is a British artist who has made Grecian style pottery with images of modern images

• Turnball is known for taking traditional styles and mixing them with modern language

• Turnball’s poems often include themes of class and consumerism

Can you provide the key themes for Ode on a Perry Grayson Urn?

• Art

• Class

• Youth / mortality / aging

• Modern life

What were the key quotes from Ode on a Perry Grayson Urn?

• “The truth was all negotiable and beauty in the gift of the beholder”

• “Hello! What’s all this here?”

• “They will stay out late / forever, pumped on youth and ecstasy”

• “Too young to quite appreciate the peril they are in”