Mock exam - Poetry Anthology - Contexts

Question 1

The Planners

Answer 1

Born in 1965 in Singapore
Singapore had a quick growth and economic success - displacement and disconnection
Britain controlled Singapore until late 1950’s

Question 2

The Man with Night Sweats

Answer 2

Friends got AIDs but he didn’t
Considered death and how he was the one to survive the AIDs pandemic
No direct reference of AIDs - connects with the idea more, idea of shame

Question 3

Funeral Blues

Answer 3

Famed for writing about love, morality, politics and religion
Elegy - poem dedicated to someone who has died
Expresses the emotions of loss and mourning

Question 4

He Never Expected Much

Answer 4

Wrote poems about fatalism - life beyond our control
Themes of death and loss in prose and poetry
Novelist and poet in Victorian-era
Tension between seeing humanity as ‘doomstruck’ and celebrating the natural world experience

Question 5

The Telephone Call

Answer 5

Conversational style
Wants people to feel homely and relax whilst listening to close conversation
Uses simple techniques and form to prevent complication

Question 6

A Consumers Report

Answer 6

1970’s life change due to consumerism
Personal difficulties due to mothers death
Poem is an extended metaphor
Satirises consumer society and how it shapes the outlook on existance

Question 7

Ozymandias

Answer 7

About Pharaoh Rameses II
Wrote during the time of archaeological exploration (1817)
Shelly was a ‘radical’ - against the monarchy, equal society (ironic as he was a lord from an aristocratic upperclass family)