Modern poems Flashcards
Eat Me by Patience Agbabi
CONTENT
- 10 x tercets/3-lined stanzas - structured, may suggest control of the man?
- dramatic monologue
- commentary on toxic relationships - desires and destruction
- no meter/almost free verse - deceptively calm/ordinary
- subtle rhyme scheme ‘cook’, ‘food’, ‘fruit’ - suggests underhanded power on her
QUOTES
- “my only pleasure the rush of fast food/ his pleasure, to watch me swell like forbidden fruit” (14-15) = rep + simile, emphasises on their desires, but also creates an uncomfortable image. almost sickly -
‘swell’ ‘forbidden’
- “too fat to leave, too fat to buy a pint…/too fat to be called chubby, cuddly, big-built” (19-20) = anaphora emphasises the effects of this overwhelming desire/pleasure, suggests some restrictions bc of this relationship
- “his mouth slightly open, his eyes bulging with greed…/nothing else left in the house to eat” = graphic imagery + ambiguity, suggests the desires of the man who ends up either dead or suspended in the way that he wishes for his partner to be: ready to be fed + bulging. even after she fought back.
An Easy Passage by Julia Copus
CONTENT
- one long stanza w/ enjambmed lines
- free verse, irregular rhyme scheme = exhilirating unpredictability of youth
- commentary abt growing up, written female-centred
QUOTES
- “sharp/ drop” (4-5) = staccato p consonance imitates the sound of her body hitting the floor. enjambmed lines elongates the sentence therefore increasing tension/danger
- “what can she know/ of the way the world admits us less and less/ the more we grow?” (17-19) = rhetorical question, growing bigger = less acceptance; adulthood lacks the freedom/flexibility of youth
- “which catch the sunlight briefly like the / flash of armaments before” (36-37) = simile, suggests intensity of youth, world is vivid + overwhelming. may also suggest smth violent + dangerous in the intensity of youth.
To my Nine-Year-Old Self by Helen Dunmore
CONTENT
- 6 stanzas of irregular length
- irregular rhyme scheme + free verse = free spirit of 9 yr old
- dramatic monologue = adresses to her 9 year old self, finds out that they are too different, leaves her alone to be concentrated on that scab
QUOTES
- “rather run than walk…/rather leap from a height than anything” (1-5) = anaphora, verbs, suggests a physically fit body, an energetic + enthiusiastic personality compared to the shy/awkward but placating “forgive me”. 9 yr old is bold
- “that summer of ambition/created an ice-lolly factory, a wasp trap / and a den by the cesspit” (16-18) = summer symbol of hope + new life. triads + imagery suggests that 9 yr old tried to actively create + pursue their wants unlike adult who needs to consider their options - can’t seize quickly
- “an ecstasy of conccentration…/ripe scab from your knee/ to taste it on your tongue” (30-32) = metaphor + gustatory imagery, suggests adult leaving 9 yr old in her happiest state. enjambmed lines speeds the poem up = growing up?
The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled by Leontia Flynn
CONTENT
- free verse, irregular meter
- suggests that they have travelled across the world but returned to ordinary life. then realises the ‘souvenirs’ she got from her relationships made her realise longest journeys were ppl
- 8x quatrain stanzas
- subtle + faint rhyme scheme. simple tho = AABB. enjambmed lines = conversational tone. relying on visuals.
QUOTES
- “my spine / curved under it like a meridian…/this is how to live.” (1-6) = “meridian” is an imaginary longitudinal
line that passes over the earth’s surface and connects its poles. simile suggests world opened up to them + body mirrored the globe they’ll travel. also declarative sent = their purpose is to travel.
- “the scare stories about Larium…/ post office with a handful of bills / or a giro” (13-18) = allusions to drug treatment to Malaria suggests an ambiguous shift that speaker may stopped feeling so fearless. returns to ordinary/settled life juxtaposing her travels
- “crushed valentines” “unravelled sports sock” “what survives / of holidaying briefly in their lives” (29-32) = imagery suggests relationships that have ended + how easily it is undone. the distances is a metaphor for her relationships. metaphor = ppl are like other
countries: exciting, remote, challenging, and worth getting to
know.
Out of the Bag by Seamus Heaney
CONTENT
- birth from a child’s POV, implying their innocence + ends as an adult in the birthing room
- divided into 4 parts
- free verse, hints of iambic pentameter implies speaker shifting from imaginative world to returning home
- irregular rhyme scheme
QUOTES
- “steel hooks, chrome surgery / and blood dreeps in the sawdust…/a bit like the rosebud in his buttonhole” (31-37) = imagery creates a mystical, eerie image of birth + Kerlin’s skill. simile suggests Kerlin is putting a doll together
- “fainted” “heat and fumes” “pull a bunch of grass and hallucinated” (53-55) = rep suggests that he is overwhelmed + feels like fainting at Lourdes ironically (bc its a place of healing). pathetic fallacy reinforces uncomfortable atmosphere which resulted to the hallucinating.
- “‘and what do you think/ Of the new wee baby the doctor brought for us all/ when I was asleep?’” (92-94) = delicate irony. reveals that the mother was the one who created this idea, making herself a storyteller to the myth.
Effects by Alan Jenkins
CONTENT
- sense of regret is formed for taking his mother for granted. reminisced abt time with mom after receiving her belongings upon her passing.
- one long stanza w 50 lines. poem is an elegy to his mom.
- loose iambic pentameter + loose rhyme scheme = free verse
QUOTES
- “scarred/ from chopping, slicing…” “raw” “reddened, rough” (1-5) = imagery, suggests that his scarred hands = scarred psyche. alliteration roughen the sound of the language + cacophony -> hard work + noisy
- “night after night and stared unseeing at/ The television, at her inner weather” (27-28) = repetition suggests her frequency. metaphor at the end may imply her inner life - ambiguous = either semi-distracted or tv replaced a lot of her inner life
- “turn her face to see/ a nurse bring the little bag of effects” = imagery + metaphor. the nurse is handing back her legacy not just personal items. her effects are the impacts in life + death that will haunt speaker = cyclical structure. burden
Genetics by Sinead Morrissey
CONTENT
- speaker reminisces of their parents’ former marriages + realises that it is still intact within themselves (by-product), returns to present as they’re getting married themselves
- villanelle form = 19 lines into 5x tercets. 1 quatrain. has 2 refrains.
- slant rhyme scheme, similar to villanelle’s ABA. imperfect repetition = children r not exact copies of their parents
QUOTES
- “my father’s in my finger, but my mother’s in my palms” (1) = parallel grammar suggests child is combination of both. caesura separates the parents from each other tho.
- “my body is their marriage register. / I re-enact their wedding with my hands” (14-15) = metaphor/imagery. suggests child is a physical proof of their marriage. with their hands, they are marrying their parents + may foreshadow their own/family.
- “we know our parents make us by our hands” (19) = cyclical of images of hands, also conditional statement. promise to pass down their fingers if partner pass down their palms. collective ‘we’ encapsulate broader human experience.
From the Journal of a Disappointed Man by Andrew Motion
CONTENT
- narrator observes a group of workmen struggling to drive a pile into a pier. they left their work abandoned anyways.
- 11 quatrains, free verse w loose rhythm
- irregular rhyme scheme
QUOTES
- “‘let go’ or ‘hold tight’; all monosyllables” (11) = their clinical sentences emphasises how ruminative they actually are, silent as speaker = similarities between classes
- “crossing his arms…the crack of Doom” (21-24) = imagery of man crossing arms + idiom suggests that he tries to appear non-caring if the wooden pile would swing, uninstalled + useless. no communication tho = unreliable
- “the foreman, and the most original thinker/ smoked a cigarette to relieve the tension” (37-38) = imagery + hyperbole - smoke break is subtle gesture he recognises the men’s labour + calls it done? thoughtful comfort
Look we have coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra
CONTENT
- a group of immigrants’ first years in the country—from their dangerous arrival, to their under-the-table jobs, to their wistful hopes for the future
- dramatic monologue, tightly organised
- free verse
- irregular rhyme scheme = chaotic like the journey? mixed like a blend of culture?
QUOTES
- “stowed” “invade” (3-5) = metaphor/military lexicon imitates Britain’s right-wing /anti-immigrant rhetoric, heightening sense of threat
- “seasons or years, we reap/ inland, unclocked by the national eye” (11-12) = literal = reaping in the fields, easy job to obtain. metaphorical = wasted years in a limbo waiting for full citizenship. national eye - metaphor = imitates B-B like gov. oppressed + controlled.
- “East, babbling our lingoes, flecked by the chalk of Britannica!” (25) = babbling suggests they can talk freely; lingoes suggests their shared language which they needn’t give up. sense of danger tho, in their pictured happiness. allusions to white cliffs of Dover. Britannica personifies Britain’s imperial past.
Please Hold by Ciaran O’Driscoll
CONTENT
- An old man is on the phone and he is put on hold. He is talking to a robotic voice and his wife is next to him saying this is the future. Eventually he grows annoyed.
- free verse
- irregular rhyme
QUOTES
- “account” “pay…paying” “money” “nothing” (14-17) = repetition/epistrophe contrasts what they wanted achieve - financial venture but ends up finding nothing. this is just company way to increase revenue.
- “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Please hold. / Eine fucking Kleine music” (39-40) = rep/allusion to Mozart song implies how far humanity have gone since the 1700s. expletive suggest mounting anger.
- “Please grow old. Please grow cold” (50) = anaphora suggests if the speaker doesn’t rebel, the call will go on forever. the epistrophe implies they might as well die waiting.
Chainsaw versus Pampas Grass by Simon Armitage
CONTENT
- in a midst of growing pampas grass, a bestial, sentient chainsaw mows it down and the user lights the grass on fire. the grass regrows anyways.
- free verse, no meter
- irregular rhyme scheme
QUOTES
- “an instant rage” “lashing out at air” “perfect disregard” “flesh of face and bones” “rear up into the brain” = LOTS of vivid but VIOLENT imagery/personification, strikes it as sinister, psychopathic. might even attack its own user into brain
- “the pampas grass with its ludricous feathers / and plumes. the pampas grass…” (30-31) = anaphora + imagery suggests it is also a fighter but its more lazy + frivolous. pleasure-loving creature.
- “came new shoots like asparagus tips” (60) = simile, suggests a soft beginning for the returning fighter. nature wins against man-made tools.
Material by Ros Barber
CONTENT
- reflects on the speaker’s mother and the lost traditions of a past era, symbolized by the handkerchief, contrasting it with the disposable culture of the present.
- 9 stanzas, mostly octaves, some 7 or 9 lines.
- loose iambic tetrameter - unstressed-stressed
- ABABCDEFE rhyme scheme, common in hymns + nursery rhymes which add lighthearted music. imperfect rhymes creates down to earth feel
QUOTES
- “things for waving out of trains/ and mopping the corners of your grief” (5-6) = metaphor, suggests its nobler purpose - romantic, old-fashioned.
- “what awkwardness in me…when handy packs are 50p?” (60-62) = rhetorical question, suggests speaker’s uncomfortableness with tissue but is unsure. its cheap
- “this is your material / to do with, daughter, what you will” (71-72) = positive tone, italicisation, suggests speaker has the power now, to live how she wants to. worlds r created by the material therefore no need to change it
The Deliverer by Tishani Doshi
CONTENT
- It covers adoption and contrasts the cultural differences in viewing children between the Eastern & Western culture.
- free verse, no meter + irregular rhyme scheme
QUOTES
- “naked” “covered in garbage, stuffed in bags” (5-7) = graphic imagery, disturbing + illustrates how worthless these babies are considered. violent + difficult to stomach.
- “don’t know of her fetish for plucking hair off hands, / or how her mother tried to bury her” (17-18) = imagery suggests neurosis developed from trauma or simply a quirk of the girl
- “trudge home to lie down for their men again” (32) = isolated line, disturbing imagery. “trudge” connotes walking heavy steps thru harsh condiitons. women return home bc they have no other choice but to - little freedom.
The Lammas Hireling by Ian Duhig
CONTENT
- man hired hierling (young man) at a fair. helpful but then man found out hireling was Warlock + shot him. He confesses at end
- dramatic monologue w 4 sestets
- irregular rhyme scheme = chaotic - magical like the tale? supernatural
- Lammas Day is a festival occurs in 1st Aug
QUOTES
- “he struck so cheap” “cattle doted on him” “yields doubled” (1-5) = sense of foreboding, hyperbolic/positive semantic field suggests that it is too good to be true. something supernatural is amiss.
- “the wisdom runs, muckle care” (13) = allusions to a witches’ chant, supernatural proverb or
spell. try to justify the speaker’s killing of the
hireling but it’s hard for the reader to see how.
- “Bless me, Father, I have sinned / It has been an hour since my last confession” (23-24) = temporal marker, religious language implies confessing on an hourly basis isn’t really
helping with his sense of guilt
A Minor Role by UA Fanthorpe
CONTENT
- caretaker - minor role whereas the ill patient is the centre of attention. less dramatic. OR vice versa. patient is stationary, workers r more focussed upon.
- dramatic monologue, free verse, irregular rhyme = CHAOTIC like life
QUOTES
- “making sense of consultant’s monologues” (11) = extended metaphor of theatre + suggests speaker is a listener
- “tears, torpor, boredom, lassitude, yearnings/ for a simpler illness, like a broken leg” (29-30) = asyndetic listing + simile speeds up the list, with their first syllables as stressed, evoking empathy. simile suggests its a chronic illness - difficulty.
- “I am here to make you believe in life” (39) = isolated line, implies life is precious, they insist. a minor role can find meaning + dignity in everyday rhythms
and relationships. Just being alive, staying alive, is enough.
