Henley In Arden
English Department
Power and Conflict Poetry
For this exam you need to learn all 15 poems. You will be asked to compare a poem printed on the exam paper to another poem of your choice around a given theme. You will then be asked to respond to an unseen poem. The last question asks you to compare a second unseen poem to the first one.
Ozymandias
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Poet: Percy Bysshe Shelley.
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Written: 1817
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The narrator meets a traveller who tells him about a statue standing in the middle of the desert. It’s a statue of a king who ruled over a past civilisation. His face is proud and he arrogantly boasts about how powerful he is. At the bottom of the statue he writes down how powerful he is. However, the statue has fallen down and crumbled away over time.
Key themes/ideas: Time, Power, Pride, Arrogance
Most memorable line: My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair.
London
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Poet: William Blake
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Written: 1794
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The narrator describes a walk around London and talks about the things that he sees. All of the people he encounters are filled with misery and despair. This is everywhere and the poet feels that it is inescapable in the city. No one is free from it. He seems to blame the people in power (Church, royals, and wealthy landowners) for this situation, as they do nothing to help the less fortunate.
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Key themes/ideas: Anger, Hopelessness, Nature (lack of), Corruption
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Most memorable line: In every voice, in every ban/The mind forged manacles I hear.
Poppies
Poet: Jane Weir
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Written: 2009
A mother describes her son leaving home, presumably to join the army. The poem focuses on the mother’s feelings about letting the son go. She is clearly worried about what will happen to him during the conflict. She describes smartening up his uniform and helping him get ready to leave. After he is gone, she goes to places that remind her of him.
Key themes/ideas: Loss, Fear, Freedom, Effects of conflict, Female perspective, Identity, Memory, Experiences of conflict
Most memorable line: Sellotape bandaged around my hand
War Photographer
Poet: Carol Ann Duffy
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Written: 1985
A war photographer is in his darkroom developing pictures that he has taken of conflict. There is a big contrast between the war zones and England, where he is now. As the photographs develop, the photographer remembers the death of a man and the cries of his wife. The final stanza of the poem focuses on the lack of care that people have about the war zones. They see them in the Sunday paper and then move on.
Key themes/ideas: Pain, Detachment, Anger, Memory, Experiences of conflict, Effects of conflict, Reality of conflict, Guilt
Most memorable line: spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The Prelude (extract)
Poet: William Wordsworth
Written: 1850
The narrator finds a boat tied to a tree on a summer’s evening and decides to take it out on a lake. At first he is happy and confident as he describes the setting around him. However, when he sees a mountain on the horizon he realises how small and powerless he actually is compared to nature and he becomes afraid. He goes back to the shore but the idea and image of the mountain stay with him. His view of nature has changed.
Key themes/ideas: Power of nature, Fear, Confidence, Reflection/memory, Pride
Most memorable line: a huge peak, black and huge.
Checking Out Me History
Poet: John Agard
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Written: 2007
This poem focuses on the identity of the narrator and how it is linked to his knowledge of history. The poet discusses how he was taught about British history but not about his own Caribbean heritage or history. He questions why this is the case and why other cultures aren’t valued as much as white history. He mentions lots of famous women and men from diverse cultures that shaped the world and draws our attention to the fact that we don’t know who they are. At the end he says that he is going to create his own identity based on his heritage.
Key themes/ideas: Anger, Admiration, Celebration, Identity, Power of humans
Most memorable line: Dem tell me/Dem tell me/Wha dem want to tell me
My Last Duchess
Poet: Robert Browning
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Written: 1842 (but set in 15th Century Italy)
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The Duke points out the portrait of his former wife to a visitor. He talks about how her behaviour made him angry – she was friendly and smiled at other people and treated him just the same as everyone else. He doesn’t say how he stopped this behaviour but there is a strong hint that he had her killed. The Duke and the visitor walk away from the painting and it is revealed to the reader that the visitor is here to arrange the next marriage of the Duke.
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Key themes/ideas: Pride, Jealousy, Anger, Power
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Most memorable line: I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together.
Exposure
Poet: Wilfred Owen
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Written: 1917-18
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The soldiers are in the trenches during WW1, awake at night and afraid of an enemy attack. Nature, however, seems to be the main enemy and what they are afraid of. It is freezing cold and snowing. The men imagine going home but the doors are shut. They believe that sacrificing themselves in war is the only way to keep their loved ones safe. They return to thinking about their deaths in the icy trenches.
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Key themes/ideas: Hopelessness, Effects of conflict, Suffering, Power of nature, Reality of war
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Most memorable line: Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army/Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey
Tissue
Poet: Imtiaz Dharker
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Written: 2006
The first three stanzas discuss the importance of paper as a way of recording our history – personal and as a society. Stanzas 4-6 look at the contrast between the fragile nature of paper and the fact that it controls our lives. The final 13 lines look at the creation aspect – human life is more complex and precious than other things we make. However it is also temporary, like paper, and part of a bigger human story.
Key themes/ideas: Control, Freedom, Power of nature, Power of humans, Identity, Female perspective
Most memorable line: Paper that lets the light/shine through, this/ is what could alter things.
Kamikaze
Poet: Beatrice Garland
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Written: 2013
The poem starts with a kamikaze pilot setting off on his mission. The poem describes what the daughter tells her own children about him - she imagined what her father, the pilot, saw as he flew. It becomes clear that the pilot did not complete his mission. The daughter imagines this is because he saw the beauty of nature and remembered his childhood. However, not completing a kamikaze mission brought great dishonour and when the pilot got home they ignore him completely because of the shame.
Key themes/ideas: Patriotism, Shame, Regret, Identity, Memory, Power of nature, Childhood, Female perspective, Effects of conflict, Loss, Experiences of conflict
Most memorable line: he must have looked far down/at the little fishing boats/strung out like bunting/on a green-blue translucent sea
Remains
Poet: Simon Armitage
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Written: 2008
A group of soldiers shoot a man who is running away from a bank raid that he was involved in. The death is described in very vivid detail. The soldier who shot him isn’t sure whether the man was armed or not and this concerns him. He thinks about it over and over. He becomes haunted by the death of the man he shot. This can be linked to the ideas of PTSD of soldiers.
Key themes/ideas: Memory, Effects of conflict, Guilt, Experiences of conflict, Reality of conflict
Most memorable line: His blood-shadow stays on the street, and out on patrol/I walk right over it week after week.
Bayonet Charge
Poet: Ted Hughes
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Written: 1957
The poem focuses on a soldier’s experience of charging towards the enemy lines. It describes his thoughts and actions as he tries to stay alive. He is afraid to fight. The poem tells us that he used to be very patriotic but now the fear has replaced this in the face of the reality of war.
Key themes/ideas: Effects of conflict, Reality of war, Fear, Confusion, Patriotism, Experiences of conflict
Most memorable line: King, honour, human dignity, etcetera/Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm.
Storm on the Island
Poet: Seamus Heaney
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Written: 1966
The narrator describes how a community thinks that it is well prepared for a coming storm. However, when the storm appears their confidence disappears. The power and sounds of the storm are described. The ending of the poem focuses on the fear as the storm hits the island. This poem can be read as a metaphor for conflict as a whole.
Key themes/ideas: Fear, Helplessness, Fear, Power of nature, Power of humans,
Most memorable line: you can listen to the thing you fear/Forgetting that it pummels your house too.
The Emigree
Poet: Carol Rumens
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Written: 1993
The speaker talks about a city in a country that she left as a child. She is very positive about it. The city seems to be in a conflict zone, or is unreachable, but in the last stanza the city appears to the speaker as a vision. An unknown ‘they’ accuse and threaten the speaker but this does not affect her positive impression of the place. It may be that the city is not actually a real place but instead represents a time, person, or emotion that the speaker has been forced to leave.
Key themes/ideas: Nostalgia/memory, Threat, Loss, Experiences of conflict, Childhood, Identity, Experiences of conflict
Most memorable line: The white streets of that city, the graceful slopes/glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Poet: Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Written: 1854
This is a description of the disastrous battle between British cavalry (soldiers on horses) and Russian forces in the Crimean war (1853-1856). There was a misunderstanding during this battle which meant that the Light Brigade were ordered to advance into a valley that was filled with enemy soldiers. As they were only armed with swords, they were slaughtered by the enemy troops’ guns and cannons. The poem celebrates their bravery in the face of death.
Key themes/ideas: Horror, Patriotism/Identity, Admiration, Effects of conflict, Reality of conflict
Most memorable line: Half a league, half a league, half a league onwards.