Poetry Progresstion Exam - Duffy Flashcards
In what year was mean time published?
1993
What was ‘top of the form’, on which Duffy’s poem is based?
The TV quiz show
In Duffy’s ‘Captain…’, name two songs or artists from the 1960s that are referenced.
Pretty Woman and The Beatles
No additional information provided.
Complete the quote: The speaker ‘lived in a kind of ___ hope. Gargling | with ___’?
fizzing, vimto
Example sentence: The speaker ‘lived in a kind of fizzing hope. Gargling with vimto’.
What adjective does the speaker use to describe the smell of his satchel?
clever
What is the technical name for these sentence types: ‘Hang on’ and ‘Try me’?
imperatives
Who are Churchill and Nelson?
Past national figures
What poetic device does Duffy use to break up the line: ‘I want it back. The captain. The one with all the answers. Bzz.’?
caesura
What adjective does the speaker use to describe his wife?
stale
What adjective does the speaker use to describe his kids?
thick
And what do the kids do as he asks them quiz questions?
wince
What used to be called Rhodesia?
Zimbabwe
Write two meanings for the word ‘litany’, which forms the title of the second poem.
a list and a religious text
What, according to the same poem, embarrassed the ‘still-haired wives’?
the talk of serious conversations and their language, eg, cancer
What adjective describes the ‘marriages [that] cackled’?
terrible
Name two words which the adults avoid discussing.
cancer/leukemia and divorce
Complete the quote: ‘The year a mass ___ of wasps bobbed in a jam jar.’
grave
Answer = grave
What did a ‘boy in the playground’ tell the speaker to do?
fuck off
Answer = fuck off
In the final line, the ‘taste of’ what, ends the poem?
soap
Answer = soap
What is the occupation of the characters who leave the mountains, in ‘Nostalgia’?
mercenaries
Answer = mercenaries
The ‘strange food’ feels like what, ‘in the belly’?
stones
Answer = stones
What adjective describes the ‘pain in the heart’?
sweet
Answer = sweet
What poetic technique to do with the pattern of sounds can be seen in the following quote: ‘of how it hurt/in the heavier air, to hear/ the music of home’?
alliteration
Answer = alliteration
The ‘music of home’ is played on ‘__ pipes summoning’?
sad
Answer = sad
‘The word was out.’ What is the word?
nostalgia
Answer = nostalgia
Complete the quote: ‘so the priest stood with his head in his hands , crying at the workings of ___’.
memory
Answer = memory
When ‘one returned’ home, why word describes what had happened to ‘everything’?
changed
Answer = changed
The word ‘nostalgia’ comes from the Greek words ‘nostos’ and ‘algos’. What do these words mean?
home and sick
Answer = home and sick
What adjective is used to describe the rain in ‘Drunk’?
hilarious
complete the quote: ‘Cheap red wine/And the whole world a __.’
mouth
Answer = mouth
what two things does the speaker ask for in the last line of the poem?
kiss and double
Answer = kiss and double
in ‘Small Female Skull’, the female blows ‘in its eye’ and likens it to what musical instrument?
an ocarina
Answer = an ocarina
complete the quote: ‘it cannot __,/holds my breath only as long as I exhale,’
cry
Answer = cry
when she kisses the skull on its ‘brow’ what adjective does the speaker use to describe the feel of the ‘bone’?
papery
Answer = papery
what does the speaker ask for as she looks in the mirror, ventriloquizing with the skull?
a gottle of geer
Answer = a gottle of geer
what does the speaker watch ‘run away’ from the skull ‘like sand/from a swimming-cap’?
dust
Answer = dust
complete the quote: ‘I see the __ where I fell for sheer love.’
scar
Answer = scar
what word does the speaker ‘murmur to the skull’?
love
Answer = love
what does she label this word and the other ‘grand words’?
hollow nouns
Answer = hollow nouns
name one of the two adjectives used to describe her hands, as she hold the skull at the end.
passionate (or trembling)
Answer = passionate (or trembling)
complete the opening line of ‘Moments of Grace’: ‘I dream through a wordless,___ place.’
familiar
Answer = familiar
the speaker’s hands are left free to do what?
remember
What is ‘glistening’ in each fist in the second stanza?
Blue ink
Complete the quote: ‘hoping I will not feel me/__ too close across time.’
Breathing
Who is calling in ‘children at dusk’?
Mothers
Complete the quote: ‘it seems we live in those staggering years/only to __ them.’
Haunt
‘These days | we are adjectives nouns. In moments of grace | we were’ what?
verbs
What does the speaker smell in the final stanza?
the peeling of oranges
The first two lines of the final stanza both begin with ‘Now I…’. This is an example of what literacy device?
Anaphora
What does the speaker’s partner do whilst ‘passing’?
kisses them on the neck
What religious term does the speaker end the poem with to define this act?
a blessing
In ‘First Love’, ‘a dream of first love forming real words, | as close to my lips as’ what?
Lipstick
As the speaker is brought to the window the garden is ‘shaking’ with what?
light
At the start of the second stanza how does the speaker describe the love?
a child’s love
Name two places where the speaker ‘will glimpse it’?
in her mothers eyes and in the windows
Complete the quote: ‘and later a __ long dead, here…’
Star
The third stanza of the poem is set during what time of day?
the evening/night
After the ‘love-letter’ has stammered itself out her heart the speaker feels ‘Such…’ what?
Faithfulness
What two things to the ‘Unseen flowers’ suddenly do to the air?
sweeten and pierce the air
What is the term for a five line stanza?
A quintain
Define a cliche
A stereotypical repeated expression that others understand
In ‘Valentine’ what does the speaker choose not to give her addressee at the start of the poem?
A red rose and a satin heart
What is the definition of a conceit?
An extended/repeated metaphor thoughout a poem/piece of text
Complete the quote: ‘it is a __ wrapped in brown paper’
Moon
What ‘will blind you with tears/like a lover’?
An onion
Complete the quote: ‘It’s __ kiss will stay on your lips’
Fierce
What two adjectives are used to describe the kiss?
Possessive and faithful
Its ’platinum loops will shrink’ to a what?
A wedding ring
Its ‘sent will cling to your fingers’, but what else will it’s sent cling to?
A knife
From which novel is the character ‘Havisham’ taken and who was its author?
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
In the opening line, the speaker refers to the man who jilted her as ‘Beloved sweetheart bastard.’ Name a literary device Duffy uses in this phrase.
Juxtaposition/an oxymoron. Also: plosive alliteration or assonance.
The speaker prays so hard that she has what, for eyes, and what is in the back of her hands?
Green pebbles and ropes
Complete this quote: ‘who days/in bed __ Nooooo at the wall’
Cawing
What literary device is Duffy using by describing the ‘curses’ as ‘puce’?
Hyperbole
‘Some nights are better’ because Havisham can feel what ‘over’ her?
A body
What word describes what she does to the wedding cake?
Stabs
At the end of the poem, what is not the only thing that ‘b-b-b-breaks’?
The heart
What is enjambement?
No punctuation at the end of a line/stanza
What is the term for the repetition of consonant sounds with a line(s) of poetry?
Consonance
What is a staccato sentence?
A stop start sentence (broken up)
What is the term for a full stop at the end of a line?
End stop
What is a dramatic monologue?
Told through the eyes of the main character - has only 1 speaker
Name two dramatic monologues you have studied so far.
Havisham and Valentine
Define an oxymoron.
Contrasting words placed next to each other - the difference in 2 words
Define alliteration.
The repetition of a letter or sound in continuing words
What is a three-line stanza called?
A tercet.
What is a four-line stanza called?
A quatrain
Name two poems which include religious language.
Litany and Moments of Grace
