POETRY ANTHOLOGY Flashcards
The Manhunt - Start
• “the frozen river which ran through his face”
The Manhunt - Middle
• “parachute silk of his punctured lung”
The Manhunt - End
- “sweating, unexploded mine”
* “Then, and only then, did I come close”
The Manhunt - Context
- Author - Simon Armitage
- The soldier, Eddie Beddoes, has physical and mental scars of war.
- Laura Beddoes, his wife, is the narrator.
Sonnet 43 - Start
- “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
* “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height”
Sonnet 43 - Middle
• “Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight”
Sonnet 43 - End
- “I love thee” - anaphora
* “but love thee better after death”
Sonnet 43 - Context
- Author - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- She escapes from societal pressures through her relationship.
- Her love is extremely strong for Robert Browning.
London - Start
- “I wander thro’ each charter’d street”
* “every face I meet / Marks of weakness, marks of woe”
London - Middle
• “mind-forg’d manacles I hear”
London - End
- “blackening Church appalls”
- “Runs in blood down Palace walls”
- “youthful Harlot’s curse”, “Infant’s tear”
London - Context
Author - William Blake
• In the poem, he describes walking through London and remarking on the horrible conditions.
• He rejects the people in power (“Church”/”Palace”) ignore the people’s problems.
The Soldier - Start
• “some corner of a foreign field / That is forever England”
The Soldier - Middle
• “England bore, shaped, made aware”
The Soldier - End
• “all evil shed way”; “pulse in the eternal mind”; “an English heaven”
The Soldier - Context
- Author - Rupert Brooke
- Written in 1914 before the start of the war - perhaps was so influenced by propaganda.
- He treats England as a ‘mother’ or even a divine being.
She Walks in Beauty - Start
• “all that’s best of dark and bright”
She Walks in Beauty - Middle
• “her face; / Where thoughts serenely sweet express”
She Walks in Beauty - End
• “A heart who’s love is innocent!”
She Walks in Beauty - Context
- Author - Lord Byron
- About Anne Wilmot, wife of Byron’s cousin
- Takes each body part in turn to suggest she has good qualities
Living Space - Start
• “Nothing is flat / or parallel.”
• Beams /
balance crookedly”
• “nails clutch at open seams”
Living Space - Middle
• “someone has squeezed / a living space”
Living Space - End
- “eggs in a wire basket”
- “fragile curves of white”
- “slanted universe”
- “bright, thin walls of faith”
Living Space - Context
- Author - Imtiaz Dharker
- She wants to show the Western world the reality of the slums found in Mumbai or elsewhere.
- There is despair in the slums yet there are messages of hope, thanks to the people.
Hawk Roosting - Start
- “I sit in the top of the wood”
* “The convenience of the high trees!
As Imperceptibly as Grief - Start
• “As Imperceptibly as Grief / The Summer lapsed away”
As Imperceptibly as Grief - Middle
• “The Morning foreign shone”
As Imperceptibly as Grief - End
• “Summer made her light escape / Into the Beautiful”
As Imperceptibly as Grief - Context
- Author - Emily Dickinson
- She was a recluse in her adult years and would send even send letters outside her home to communicate.
- In the poem, “Summer” comes to an end gradually - symbolises the slow end of grief.
Cozy Apologia - Start
• “with furrowed brow / And chainmail glinting”
Cozy Apologia - Middle
- “post-post-modern age”
* “sweet with a dark and hollow center”
Cozy Apologia - End
• “I fill this stolen time with you.”
Cozy Apologia - Context
- Author - Rita Dove
- In this poem, Rita and her husband, “Fred”, are taking refuge during a storm.
- She says her love is ordinary but genuine - and the poem is ‘in defence of coziness’.
Valentine - Start
• “Not a red rose or a satin heart / I give you an onion”
Valentine - Middle
- “It will bind you with tears / like a lover”
* “I am trying to be truthful”
Valentine - End
- “Take it.” - command
- “Lethal.”
- “cling to your fingers, / cling to your knife”
Valentine - Context
- Author - Carol Ann Duffy
- In the poem she criticises cliché presentations of love such as “rose”s or a “cute card”.
- She justifies why onions are a better or more “truthful” representation of love - but warns against them at the end of the poem, “Lethal.”
A Wife in London - Start
- “tawny vapour”, “waning taper”
* “messenger’s knock cracks smartly”
A Wife in London - Middle
- “the fog hangs thicker”, “by firelight flicker”
* “His hand, whom the worm now knows”
A Wife in London - End
- “Page-full of his hoped return”
* “brake and burn / In the summer weather”
A Wife in London - Context
- Author - Thomas Hardy
- He criticises war as pointless and destructive.
- The poem was written during the Boer War - a wife getting a telegram/message about a dead husband was very common - partly why half of the poem is “Irony”.
Death of a Naturalist - Start
- “bubbles gargled delicately”
* “But best of all was the warm thick slobber”
Death of a Naturalist - Middle
• “Miss Walls”, “daddy frog”, “mammy frog”
Death of a Naturalist - End
- “Then one hot day”
- “slap and plop were obscene threats”
- “poised like mud grenades”
- “I sickened, turned, and ran”
Death of a Naturalist - Context
- Author - Seamus Heaney
- He grew up in Northern Ireland - known for its rich countryside available to the children in schools.
- Reflects on changing viewpoints as a growing child as he had a son of his own in 1966.
Hawk Roosting - Middle
- “I hold Creation in my foot!”
* “My manners are tearing off heads”
Hawk Roosting - End
- “The sun is behind me”
* “I am going to keep things like this.”
Hawk Roosting - Context
- Author - Ted Hughes
- He had a rural upbringing and so was well aware of the reality and violence of nature.
- His father was a WW1 veteran and he was aware of the violent nature of humans - depicted by the brutality of the hawk.
To Autumn - Start
• “Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness”
To Autumn - Middle
• “Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind”
To Autumn - End
- “Where are the songs of Spring?”
* “light wind lives or dies”
To Autumn - Context
- Author - John Keats
- He writes an ‘ode’ to Autumn as it is full of “fruitfulness” and a generally good time for harvest etc.
- He was near the end of his life due to Tuberculosis - explores “death” in terms of drastic change in the poem.
Afternoons - Start
- “Summer is fading
* “Young mothers assemble”
Afternoons - Middle
- “husbands in skilled trades”
* “‘Our Wedding’, lying”
Afternoons - End
• “Something is pushing them/
To the side of their own lives”
Afternoons - Context
- Author - Phillip Larkin
- He criticises the structure of family and its affect on those who are part of one - he himself had a poor relationship with his parents.
- Mothers have lost their freedoms yet the fathers continue to work in their “skilled trades”.
Dulce et Decorum Est - Start
- “Bent double, like old beggars”
- “Drunk with fatigue”
- “Men marched asleep”
Dulce et Decorum Est - Middle
- “Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - an ecstasy of fumbling”
* “I saw him drowning > guttering, choking, drowning”
Dulce et Decorum Est - End
- “His hanging face, like a devil sick of sin”
- “Obscene as cancer”
- “incurable sores on innocent tongues”
- “The Old Lie: Pro patria mori”
Dulce et Decorum Est - Context
- Author - Wilfred Owen
- He fought in WW1 and suffered immensely.
- Poem written to counter pro-war propaganda and expose it as horrific as it truly was.
Ozymandias - Middle
- “The hand that mocked them, the heart that fed”
* “‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’”
Ozymandias - End
- “Nothing beside remains”
- “Boundless and bare”
- “The lone and level sands stretch far away”
Ozymandias - Context
- Author - Percy Bysshe Shelley
- He was a romantic poet who was inspired by a real statue of Ramses II.
- In the poem, the power of nature prevails over the arrogance of even ‘King Ozymandias’ - somewhat of a hubris.
Mametz Wood - Start
- “the wasted young”
* “broken bird’s egg shell of a skull”
Mametz Wood - Middle
- “nesting machine guns”
- “even now the earth stands sentinel”
- “like a wound working a foreign body”
Mametz Wood - End
- “skeletons paused mid-dance macabre”
* “notes they had sung” > “from their absent tongues”
Mametz Wood - Context
- Author - Owen Sheers
- He attacks the results of war due to their profound effect on the young soldiers that fought.
- Obvious negatives yet subtle melancholic positives through natural metaphors.
The Prelude - Start
- “through the twilight blaz’d /
* I heeded not the summons”
The Prelude - Middle
- “proud and exulting, like an untir’d horse
* “The Pack loud bellowing”
The Prelude - End
- “sent an aliens sound”
* “orange sky of evening died away”
The Prelude - Context
- Author - William Wordsworth
- He wrote an autobiography of his childhood ice skating - before the death of his parents.
- Evaluates nature versus humans and change as the industrial revolution developed.
