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Poetry (Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley (Percy Bysshe Shelley was a '…
Poetry
Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was a 'Romantic' poet, who only really became famous after his death. He wrote 'Ozymandias' in 1817, after hearing about how an Italian explorer had retrieved the statue from the desert.
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 in an inscription on the statue's base. However, the statue has fallen down and crumbled away so that only the ruins remain.
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"shattered visage lies" "of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare" "Ozymandias, king of kings"
Kamikaze
The poem opens with a kamikaze pilot setting off on his mission. It becomes clear that the pilot turned around and didn't complete his mission - his daughter imagines that this was because on the way he saw the beauty of nature and remembered his innocent childhood. The pilot was shunned when he got home - even his family acted as if he wasn't there.
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Beatrice Gartland
Beatrice Gartland lives in London and works as a clinician and researcher for the NHS alongside writing poetry. 'Kamikaze' was published in 2013 as part of her first poetry collection, The Invention of Fireworks.
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London
William Blake
'London' was published in 1794. William Blake was an English poet and artist who held quite radical social and political views for the time - he believed in social and racial equality and questioned Church teachings.
The narrator is describing a walk round the city of London. He says that everywhere he goes, the people he meets are affected by misery and despair. This misery seems relentless. No one can escape it - not even the young and innocent. People in power (Church, Monarchy and wealthy landowners) seem to be behind the problems, and do nothing to help the people in need.
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Checking Out Me History
The narrator is talking about his identity and how it links to his knowledge of history. He was taught about British History but he wasn't taught about his Caribbean roots. He lists famous figures from history and questions why he doesn't know about people from other cultures who did great things. He mentions men and women from diverse backgrounds who should be celebrated. At the end, he says he's going to create his own identity based on his heritage.
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John Agard
John Agard was born in Guyana, a Caribbean country in South America, but he moved to Britain in 1977. His poetry often examines cultures and identities. 'Checking Out Me History' was published in 2007.
"the loose silver of whitebait" "enough fuel for a one way journey" "little fishing boats strung out like bunting"
My Last Duchess
The Duke proudly points out a portrait of the Duchess to a visitor. The Duke was angered by the Duchess's behaviour. He acted to stop the Duchess's flirtatious behaviour, but he doesn't say how he did this. There are strong hints that he had her murdered. The Duke and his guest walk away from the painting and the reader discovers that the Duke's visitor has come to arrange his next marriage.
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Robert Browning
Browning was born in England but lived in Italy for many years. He was fascinated by the Italian Renaissance.
"since none puts by the curtain I have drawn for you" "I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together" "the bough of cherries, some officious fool"
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Exposure
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen wrote 'Exposure' in 1917-18 from the trenches of World War One, not long before he was killed in battle. Much of Owen' poetry reveals his anger at the war's waste of life and its horrific conditions.
Soldiers in trenches of World War One are awake at night, afraid of an enemy attack. However, nature seems to be their main enemy - it's freezing cold, windy and snowing. The men imagine returning home, but the doors are closed to them. They believe that sacrificing themselves in the war is the only way of keeping their loved ones at home safe. They return to thinking about their deaths in the icy, bleak trenches.
Reality of war, Power of Nature
"slowly our ghosts drag home" "sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence" "shriveling many hands, puckering foreheads crisp"
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Bayonet Charge
The poem focuses on a single soldier's experience of a charge towards enemy lines. It describes his thoughts and actions as he tries to stay alive. The soldier's overriding emotion and motivation is fear, which has replaced the more patriotic ideals that he held before the violence began.
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Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes was a 20th century English poet. His father served in and survived World War One, and Ted spent two years as a mechanic in the RAF before going to university. 'Bayonet Charge' was published in 1957.
"bullets smacking the belly out of air" "sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest" "He plunged past with his bayonet towards the green hedge"
Poppies
A mother describes her son leaving home, seemingly to join the army. The poem is about the mother's emotional reaction to her son leaving - she feels sad, lonely and scared for his safety. She describes helping him smarten his uniform ready to leave. After he leaves, she goes to places that remind her of him, desperately trying to find any trace of him.
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Jane Weir
Jane Weir is a writer and textile designer who grew up in Manchester and Italy, and also lived in Belfast. 'Poppies' was one of a collection of 21st century war poems commissioned in 2009 by Carol Ann Duffy.
"run my fingers through the gelled blackthorns of your hair" "released a song bird from its cage" "hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind"
Remains
A group of soldiers shoot a man who's running away from a bank raid he's been involved in. His death is described in graphic detail. The soldier telling the story isn't sure whether the man was armed or not - this plays on his mind. He can't get the man's death out of his head - he's haunted by it.
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Simon Armitage
Armitage is an English poet, playwright and novelist. 'Remains' is from his 2008 collection, The Not Dead, which looks at the effect of war on ex-soldiers. It's based on the account of a British soldier who served in Iraq.
"I see every round as it rips through his life" "tosses his guts back into his body" "he's carted off in the back of a lorry"
Storm on the Island
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney was a Northern Irish poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 and died in 2013. He often wrote about themes such as childhood, nature and his homeland. This poem was published in 1966.
The narrator describes how a community thinks it will-prepared for a coming storm. As the poem goes on, their confidence starts to disappear as the storm develops. The power and the sounds of the storm are described.
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"spits like a tame cat turned savage" "it pummels your house too" "we are balanced by the empty air"
Tissue
The first three stanzas talk about the importance of paper as a means of recording out history. Stanzas four to six focus on the paradox that paper is fragile, yet it still controls our lives. The final thirteen lines look at creating things, particularly human life. Life is more complex and precious than other things we create. It's also temporary, but forms part of a bigger and ongoing story.
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Imtiaz Dharker
Imtiaz Dharker was born in Pakistan, raised in Glasgow and now lives in Britain and India. 'Tissue' is from her 2006 collection, The Terrorist at My Table - the collection questions how well we know the people around us.
"the sun shines through there borderlines" "paper thinned by age or touching" "might fly our lives like paper kites"
War Photographer
A war photographer is in his darkroom, developing pictures that he's taken in war zones across the world. Being back in England is a big contrast - it's safe and calm compared to where he's been. A photo begins to develop, and the photographer remembers the death of the man, and the cries of his wife. The final stanza focuses on the people in England who will see his photographs in their Sunday papers. The speaker thinks that they don't really care about the people and places in the photographs.
Carol Ann Duffy
Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet who, in 2009, became the first woman to hold the post of Poet Laurerate. 'War Photographer' was published in 1985 as part of Duffy's collection, Standing Female Nude.
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"remembers the cries of this man's wife" "A hundred agonies in black and white" "the reader's eyeball prick"
The Emigree
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The speaker talks about a city in a country she has left as a child - she has purely positive view of it. The city seems to be under attack and unreachable, but in the third stanza it appears to the speaker. An unknown "They" accuse and threaten the speaker, but she still sees the old city in a positive way. The city may not be a real place - it could represent a time, person or emotion that the speaker has been forced to leave.
Carol Rumens
Carol Rumens is an English poet, lecturer and translator. She has published over fifteen collections of poetry, as well as several novels and plays. 'The Emigree' appeared in her 1993 collection, Thinking of Skins.
"my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight" "memory of it is sunlight clear" "the frontiers rise between us"