IGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE RESOURCE: UNSEEN POETRY QUESTIONS – EXAMPLES FOR PRACTICE
IGCSE English Literature Resource
UNSEEN POETRY QUESTIONS – EXAMPLES FOR PRACTICE
Remember: the bullet points are your essay plan, but everything you write also needs to answer the
question in bold.
1. John Clare: 'First Love' (Songs of Ourselves, p.154)
How does Clare present his experience of falling in love?
You might like to consider:
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His use of similes and metaphors
His descriptions of his own body
His use of rhyme and rhythm
First Love
I ne’er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale,
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked, what could I ail?
My life and all seemed turned to clay.
And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away,
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start—
They spoke as chords do from the string,
And blood burnt round my heart.
Are flowers the winter’s choice?
Is love’s bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice,
Not love's appeals to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.
John Clare
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IGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE RESOURCE: UNSEEN POETRY QUESTIONS – EXAMPLES FOR PRACTICE
2. Gillian Clarke: 'Lament' (Songs of Ourselves, p.150)
How does Clarke describe the effects of man on the environment and her feelings about
them?
You might like to consider:
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Her choice of imagery
Her use of her chosen verse form, and of repetition
The ways in which she implies her own emotions
Lament
For the green turtle with her pulsing burden,
in search of the breeding ground.
For her eggs laid in their nest of sickness.
For the cormorant in his funeral silk,
the veil of iridescence on the sand,
the shadow on the sea.
For the ocean’s lap with its mortal stain.
For Ahmed at the closed border.
For the soldier with his uniform of fire.
For the gunsmith and the armourer,
the boy fusilier who joined for the company,
the farmer’s sons, in it for the music.
For the hook-beaked turtles,
the dugong and the dolphin,
the whale struck dumb by the missile’s thunder.
For the tern, the gull and the restless wader,
the long migrations and the slow dying,
the veiled sun and the stink of anger.
For the burnt earth and the sun put out,
the scalded ocean and the blazing well.
For vengeance, and the ashes of language.
Gillian Clarke
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IGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE RESOURCE: UNSEEN POETRY QUESTIONS – EXAMPLES FOR PRACTICE
3. Peter Porter: 'A Consumer's Report' (Songs of Ourselves, pp.197-198)
How is the speaker's attitude to life conveyed in this poem?
You might like to consider:
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The poem's use of metaphor
What you learn about the speaker, including his tone of voice
The effect of the end of the poem
A Consumer’s Report
The name of the product I tested is Life,
I have completed the form you sent me
and understand that my answers are confidential.
I had it as a gift,
I didn’t feel much while using it,
in fact I think I’d have liked to be more excited.
It seemed gentle on the hands
but left an embarrassing deposit behind.
It was no economical
and I have used much more than I thought
(I suppose I have about half left
but it’s difficult to tell) –
although the instructions are fairly large
there are so many of them
I don’t know which to follow, especially
as they seem to contradict each other.
I’m not sure such a thing
should be put in the way of children –
It’s difficult to think of a purpose
for it. One of my friends says
it’s just to keep its maker in a job.
Also the price is much too high.
Things are piling up so fast,
after all, the world got by
For a thousand million years
without this, do we need it now?
(Incidentally, please ask your man
to stop calling me ‘the respondent’,
I don’t like the sound of it.)
There seems to be a lot of different labels,
sizes and colours should be uniform,
the shape is awkward, it’s waterproof
but not heat resistant, it doesn’t keep
yet it’s very difficult to get rid of:
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IGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE RESOURCE: UNSEEN POETRY QUESTIONS – EXAMPLES FOR PRACTICE
whenever they make it cheaper they seem
to put less in – if you say you don’t
want it, then it’s delivered anyway.
I’d agree it’s a popular product,
it’s even got into the language; people
even say they’re on the side of it.
Personally I think it’s overdone,
a small thing people are ready
to behave badly about. I think
we should take it for granted. If its
experts are called philosophers or market
researchers or historians, we shouldn’t
care. We are the consumers and the last
law makers. So finally, I’d buy it.
But the question of a ‘best’buy’
I’d like to leave until I get
the competitive product you said you’d send.
Peter Porter
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