English

• Ozymandias


  Poem by Percy Shelley, narrator meets a traveler who tells him about a statue he saw in the desert
• The once impressive empire the statue represented is now crumbled and isolated in the desert
• London


  Poem by William Blake, narrator describes a walk through the city of London in 1794
• The poem suggests the suffering is caused by those in power - the church, landowners, monarchy, and government
• The Prelude


  Poem by William Wordsworth, describes a true story from Wordsworth's childhood in the Lake District
• My Last Duchess


  Dramatic monologue by Robert Browning, Duke of Ferrara shows a painting of his former wife to a guest
• There is evidence the Duke is not as powerful and in control as he thinks
• The Charge of the Light Brigade


  Poem by Alfred Tennyson, focuses on part of the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War
• The poem praises the bravery of the soldiers but questions the leadership blunder that led to the unnecessary deaths
• Exposure


  Poem by Wilfred Owen, describes the poet's World War I experience in trench warfare
• Storm on the Island


  Poem by Seamus Heaney, set in the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland
• Bayonet Charge


  Poem by Ted Hughes, an imagined account of a World War I soldier charging towards the enemy
• Remains


  Poem by Simon Armitage, based on the true story of a soldier in the Iraq War
• Poppies


  Dramatic monologue by Jane Weir, from the perspective of a mother and her relationship with her son who has joined the army
• War Photographer


  Poem by Carol Ann Duffy, about a photographer who comes home from a war zone
• Tissue


  Poem by Imtiaz Dharker, explores the power and fragility of paper
• The Island Woman


  Poem by Carol Rumens, narrator speaks about a country she left as a child but still remembers positively
• Checking Out Me History

  Poem by John Agard, about identity and the Eurocentric view of history
• Kamikaze


  Poem by Beatrice Garland, a mother talking to her children about her father, a kamikaze pilot
• The poem shows the conflict between cultural/military expectations and the pilot's own desire to return home