Poetry

Question 1

Absence quotes (5)

Answer 1

1. ‘we last met’
2. ‘nothing was changed’
3. ‘no sign that anything has ended’
4. ‘thoughtless birds’
5. ‘nothing to instruct me to forget’

Question 2

Absence context (5)

Answer 2

• Elizabeth Jennings
• Was a librarian before becoming a publisher and review poetry
• The movement - rejected the overly poetries and formal poetry
• Intensely personal
• Mental health issues

Question 3

Nothing’s changed themes (4)

Answer 3

1. Culture
2. Time
3. Social problems
4. Nature

Question 4

Nothing’s changed quotes (7)

Answer 4

1. ‘working man’s cafe’
2. ‘take it with you, eat, it is a plastic table’s top’
3. ‘No sign says it is: but we know where we belong’
4. ‘Grass and weeds’
5. ‘and my hands’
6. ‘and the skin about my bones’
7. ‘and the soft labouring of my lungs’

Question 5

Nothing’s changed context (2)

Answer 5

• It is about Afrika (author) returning to district six at the end of Apartheid. It was an area that used to be flourishing and now is just a mess. It describes the poet’s anger about what has happened in the area.
• Criticises racism and authority figures.

Question 6

London context (5)

Answer 6

• William Blake
• Abuse of power
• French Revolution
• Dirty city oppose to nature
• Industrialisation

Question 7

London themes (3)

Answer 7

1. Society - undone damage
2. Repetitive life
3. Industrialisation

Question 8

London quotes (9)

Answer 8

1. ‘mark in every face I met’
2. ‘marks of weakness, marks of woe’
3. ‘in every cry of every men’
4. ‘in every infants cry of fear’
5. ‘in every voice’
6. ‘chimney-sweepers’
7. ‘blackning’
8. ‘youthful’
9. ‘new-born infants tear’

Question 9

First flight context (5)

Answer 9

• Author - U.A. Fanthorpe
• Worked in phyc word
• Loved watching people
• 2 fliers - experienced and not
• Too much industrialisation

Question 10

Stewart island context (4)

Answer 10

• Author - Fleur Adcock
• Lived in New Zealand until was 5
• Moved to UK
• Attempted to come back for university - did not like it

Question 11

Adlestrop context (6)

Answer 11

• author: Edward Thomas
• real - life train journey that happened 6 weeks before the war
• written after the war
• train was not expected to stop there
• author wrote novels/books
• found inspiration in war

Question 12

Westminster bridge context (7 + romantic poetry)

Answer 12

• author: William Wordsworth’s
• autobiography
• journey with sister
• London during sunrise
• accessible to common people
• not used to seeing big cities
• romantic poet => loves nature; highly religious but fearing; against industrialisation

Question 13

Home thoughts from abroad context (6)

Answer 13

• author: Robert Browning
• did not live in England
• loved Italy and Italian culture
• wife was really ill (sun and warm temperatures in Italy helped)
• not able to move back to UK because of that
• romantic poet

Question 14

Where the picnic was context (4)

Answer 14

• author: Thomas Hardy
• part of collection written as a response the the death of his wife, Emma Gifford in November 1912
• Hardy neglected Emma in their life together, and wrote these poems in order to make amends
• Hardy wrote the poem about a real picnic that took place in the summer of 1912 along with his wife and 2 other poets

Question 15

Hurricane hits England context (6)

Answer 15

• author: Grace Nichols
• the cyclone storm of 15–16 October 1987, which caused devastation across the south of England, inspired the poem.
• born in Georgetown
• moved to England in 1977
• hurricanes are common in her native country
• 22 people died/15 million trees were lost

Question 16

To autumn context (4)

Answer 16

• author: John Keats
• was inspired by his daily walks in and around Winchester
• sense of loss -> reflects the poet’s serene and mature acceptance of his own mortality
• serves as the last of Keats’ six famous “1819 odes” as well as his last major composition before his death one year later

Question 17

In Romney march context (4)

Answer 17

• author: John Davidson
• Scottish poet and novelist
• natural landscape place famous for sheep
• a sparsely populated area of wetland of Kent and East Sussex in England, prone to flooding

Question 18

I started early context (8)

Answer 18

• author: Emily Dickinson
• no one knew she was a poet
• was ill all her childhood
• never visited ocean
• did not have a mother figure growing up
• became a recluse from age of 30
• died at 56 of kidney disease
• sister found her poetry

Question 19

Postcard from a travel snob context (7)

Answer 19

• author: Sophie Hannah
• born in 1971 and poem written in 1996
• in 1990s, more people could afford to go on weeks away
• class divide
• rich people went on gap years
• looked down on people who went backpacking
• narrator is one of the rich snooty people who look down on the people who go on package holidays and we are not supposed to like the narrator.

Question 20

Presents from my aunts in Pakistan context (6)

Answer 20

• author: Moniza Alvi
• teenage girl who caught between cultures, having a father from Pakistan and an English mother
• exploration of cultural identity
• gifts she receives, vividly coloured traditional Pakistani clothes, bangles and shoes, both delight and confuse her
• autobiography
• main theme: identity