Poetry

• Ozymandias- Percy Shelley


  "sneer of cold command"

  
  

  "Sneer" is deemed a disrespectful expression which shows contempt or scorn

  'C' is used as a hard consonant (symbolises darkness)

  Alliteration
• Ozymandias- Percy Shelley


  "The lone and level sands stretch far away."

  
  

  Entropy (the idea that everything is pointless)

  Nature is more powerful than humanity
• London- William Blake


  "every...every...every"

  
  

  Rule of three

  Repetition says its everywhere and every time and also a daily recurrence
• London- William Blake


  "black'ning church"

  
  

  Black has negative connotation

  Churches were corrupt
• The Prelude- William Wordsworth

  "a huge peak, black and huge"

  
  

  The guy is lost for words

  Shows darkness
• The Prelude- William Wordsworth

  "Upreared its head"

  
  

  Zoomorphism- Fierce and scary
• My last duchess- Robert Browning


  "My gift of a nine-hundred-year-old name with anybody's gift."

  
  

  The quote shows how arrogant the Duke really is. He hates how the Duchess doesn't consider his family name as important as he does. "Anybody's" highlights his arrogant attitude towards his own self importance.
• My last duchess- Robert Browning


  "I gave commands, and the smiles stopped altogether."

  
  

  The Duke says that he ... This could be seen as The Duke giving orders to kill his wife, displaying his arrogance again as he thinks that her life isn't worth living.
• The Charge of the Light Brigade- Alfred Tennyson


  "Half a league, half a league, half a league onward"

  
  

  Dactylic diameter- imitates an unstoppable galloping horse-

  
  

  Irregular rhyme scheme shows the unorganised cavalry as the leader gives the wrong commands
• The Charge of the Light Brigade- Alfred Tennyson


  "jaws of Death... mouth of Hell"

  
  

  Personification- like they are stuck in the body of a monster

  Symantec field of death
• Exposure- Wilfred Owen


  "merciless iced east winds that knive us..."

  
  

  Personification for the wind and weather

  Sibilance

  Elipsis
• Exposure- Wilfred Owen


  "But nothing happens"

  
  

  Epiphora- creates a cyclical structure that adds to the monotony
• Storm on the island- Seamus Heaney


  "Exploding comfortably"

  
  

  Oxymoron

  Symantic field of war
• Storm on the island- Seamus Heaney

  "spits like a tame cat Turned savage"

  
  

  enjambment

  Violent and disrespectful

  the cat has turned from its owner
• Bayonet Charge- Ted Hughes


  "Cold clockwork of the stars and the nations"

  
  

  Soldiers are part of an uncaring cold machine of war

  
  

  Repetition of harsh "k" gives an unforgiving feel, of pronounced, it's long which can represent the soldier's experience, and the inexorable nature of war
• Bayonet Charge- Ted Hughes

  "His foot hung like Statuary in mid-strike."

  
  

  Caesura jolts him

  Frozen with bewilderment and fear
• Remains- Simon Armitage


  "Then he's carted off in the back of a lorry"

  
  

  Reduction of humanity/ waste described as cattle
• Remains- Simon Armitage


  "He's here in my head when I close my eyes, Dug in behind enemy lines"

  
  

  Metaphor for a war in his head. PTSD is entrenched and he can't get rid of it.
• Poppies- Jane Weir


  "cat hairs...Eskimos...intoxicated"

  
  

  Home is compared to the battlefield
• Poppies- Jane Weir


  "I was brave, as I walked with you"

  
  

  1st person, was is also felt at home
• War photographer- Carol Ann Duffy


  "A hundred agonies in black and white"

  
  

  Another play on words - the film is black and white but this is also a reference to the phrase used to suggest an idea is clear cut/no ambiguity.
• War photographer- Carol Ann Duffy


  "Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows"

  
  

  Paradox, chaos reduced to something ordered

  Compares the meticulous arrangement of the spools to the graves in a war cemetery.

  'Ordered' - almost oxymoronic. Is the speaker trying to make sense if war?
• The Emigree- Carol Rumens


  "I can't get it off my tongue. it tastes of sunlight"

  
  

  synaesthesia, blur between taste and vision, confusion of memories and repetition with the clearly flawed memory

  Refrain (repeated at the end of each stanza) on Sunlight
• The Emigree- Carol Rumens


  "they accuse me of being dark in their free city"

  
  

  It's unclear who "they" are, but, they are menacing, and the repetition reinforces their threat to the speaker.
• Checking Out Me History- John Agard

  "Toussaint de beacon... fire-woman struggle... a yellow sunrise"

  
  

  Black historic figures are highlighted as godly people

  Symantec field of light
• Checking Out Me History- John Agard


  Structure is used against eurocentric teaching

  
  

  Creole Phonetic spelling

  Irregular rhyme scheme

  Free verse

  Lack of punctuation
• Kamikaze- Beatrice Garlard


  "dark shoals of fishes flashing silver"

  
  

  Imagery of a samurai sword against nature

  Samurai sword connotes his duty

  Nature connotes his childhood

  Duty Vs. Childhood
• Kamikaze- Beatrice Garlard


  "he and his brother... my mother"

  
  

  Changes from 3rd person to 2nd person
• Kamikaze


  "Her father embarked at sunrise"

  "Her father"- 3rd person indirect address makes pilots voice removed

  "Embarked" a journey away from "sunrise"- imperial japan