Poetry
Most students can say what a poem is about. Marks are given for saying how it does what it does.
A method for reading any poem
Use this on a prescribed poem and on an unseen one. It takes about ten minutes.
Read it aloud, twice
Poetry is written for the ear. Reading aloud reveals rhythm, pauses and emphasis that silent reading hides — and often reveals the meaning too.
Ask: who is speaking, and to whom?
The speaker of a poem is not automatically the poet. Ask what kind of person is speaking, in what situation, and to whom. This one question answers a surprising number of examination questions.
Find the turn
Most poems change direction somewhere: a but, a yet, a question, a change of tense, a change of tone. Find that moment and you have usually found the heart of the poem.
Mark the pictures
Underline every image — anything you can see, hear, touch, taste or smell. Then ask what they have in common. Images in a poem are rarely random; they usually belong to one or two families.
Listen for the sound
Where does the poem speed up or slow down? Are the lines long or short? Does it rhyme, and where does the rhyme break? Sound carries meaning in poetry.
Say the poem's point in one sentence
If you cannot, you do not yet understand it. If you can, you have your essay's thesis.
The terms you need, and what to do with them
Naming a technique gains almost nothing. Naming it, quoting it and explaining its effect gains the mark. The third part is the one students leave out.
- Imagery
- Language that appeals to the senses. Ask what kind of images the poet uses — natural, violent, domestic, religious — because the pattern is usually meaningful.
- Example: Instead of "the poet uses imagery", write "the images are all of machinery and noise, which makes the village feel invaded rather than merely changed".
- Simile and metaphor
- Comparisons — with like or as for a simile, without for a metaphor. Always ask what the comparison brings with it.
- Example: Comparing grief to a stone suggests weight and coldness, and something that will not dissolve.
- Personification
- Giving human qualities to something not human. Ask why the poet wanted that thing to seem alive.
- Example: A river that "argues" with its banks is being made restless and wilful.
- Tone
- The attitude the poem takes to its subject: angry, tender, mocking, resigned, celebratory. Tone questions are common and are usually answered too vaguely.
- Example: Rather than "the tone is sad", identify it more exactly: bitter, wistful, resigned, defiant.
- Stanza and form
- How the poem is divided, and whether the divisions match the movement of thought.
- Example: A poem whose last stanza is shorter than the others often does so to close abruptly or to leave something unfinished.
- Rhythm and metre
- The beat of the lines. You do not need technical scansion at O/L; you do need to notice when the rhythm changes.
- Example: A smooth rhythm broken by a short, hard line usually marks a shock or a decision.
- Rhyme
- Repeated sounds at line ends. What matters is the pattern and, especially, where the pattern breaks.
- Example: A regular rhyme scheme that fails in the final couplet can suggest that order has collapsed.
- Enjambment
- A sentence running over the end of a line without a pause.
- Example: It can create speed, breathlessness, or a small surprise as the meaning turns at the line break.
- Repetition
- A word, phrase or structure used again deliberately.
- Example: Repetition can suggest obsession, insistence, monotony or ritual — say which.
- Symbol
- An object standing for a larger idea.
- Example: A closed gate may stand for exclusion, or for protection, depending on how the poem treats it. Argue for your reading; do not assume it.
Turning observation into an answer
The example lines below are invented for the purpose of illustration, so that the method can be shown without quoting from a copyrighted poem.
Question: Suppose a poem's speaker describes a returning soldier and the line reads: The gate still opens on its rusted cry.
Weak answer: The poet uses imagery here. It shows that the gate is old.
Strong answer: The gate's noise is described as a "rusted cry", a metaphor that gives the gate a human voice and makes its sound one of pain rather than of welcome. The word "still" tells us that nothing at home has changed, and the contrast with the soldier, who has changed entirely, is left for the reader to feel rather than being stated. The homecoming is therefore made uneasy from the first line, before anything at all has happened.
Why this answer works
- The strong answer quotes exactly — two words are enough. Long quotations waste time.
- It names the technique (metaphor) but does not stop there.
- It explains the effect: a human voice, pain rather than welcome.
- It notices a small word — still — which is where much of the meaning in poetry lives.
- It connects the detail to the whole poem: the homecoming is uneasy from the start.
- The weak answer is not wrong. It simply stops at the point where the marks begin.
The commonest poetry mistake
Writing about the subject of the poem instead of the poem. An answer that describes what happens to the speaker, without once looking at a word the poet chose, cannot reach the higher marks however fluent it is.
The test: does your answer contain at least two short quotations, each explained? If not, it is about the subject, not the poem.