section c unseen poetry - the phoenix collegiate...section c – unseen poetry answer both questions...

Section C – Unseen Poetry

Answer both questions from this section

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27.1 In ‘First Day at School’, how does the poet present the ways the speaker feels about

starting school?

(24 marks)

First Day at School A millionbillionwillion miles from home Waiting for the bell to go. (To go where?) Why are they all so big, other children? So noisy? So much at home they Must have been born in uniform Lived all their lives in playgrounds Spent the years inventing games That don't let me in. Games That are rough, that swallow you up. And the railings. All around, the railings. Are they to keep out wolves and monsters? Things that carry off and eat children? Things you don't take sweets from? Perhaps they're to stop us getting out Running away from the lessins. Lessin. What does a lessin look like? Sounds small and slimy. They keep them in the glassrooms. Whole rooms made out of glass. Imagine. I wish I could remember my name Mummy said it would come in useful. Like wellies. When there's puddles. Yellowwellies. I wish she was here. I think my name is sewn on somewhere Perhaps the teacher will read it for me. Tea-cher. The one who makes the tea.

Roger McGough

27.2 In ‘First Day at School’ and in ‘The School in August’, both speakers describe

attitudes towards school.

What are the similarities and/or differences between the ways the poets present these

attitudes?

(8 marks)

The School in August

The cloakroom pegs are empty now, And locked the classroom door, The hollow desks are lined with dust, And slow across the floor A sunbeam creeps between the chairs Till the sun shines no more.

Who did their hair before this glass? Who scratched 'Elaine loves Jill' One drowsy summer sewing-class With scissors on the sill? Who practised this piano Whose notes are now so still?

Ah, notices are taken down, And scorebooks stowed away, And seniors grow tomorrow From the juniors today, And even swimming groups can fade, Games mistresses turn grey. Phillip Larkin



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27.1 In ‘After the Titanic’, how does the poet present the ways the speaker feels about

experiencing a disaster?

(24 marks)

After the Titanic

They said I got away in a boat

And humbled me at the inquiry. I tell you

I sank as far that night as any

Hero. As I sat shivering on the dark water

I turned to ice to hear my costly

Life go thundering down in a pandemonium of

Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches,

Boilers bursting and shredded ragtime. Now I hide

In a lonely house behind the sea

Where the tide leaves broken toys and hatboxes

Silently at my door. The showers of

April, flowers of May mean nothing to me, nor the

Late light of June, when my gardener

Describes to strangers how the old man stays in bed

On seaward mornings after nights of

Wind, takes his cocaine and will see no one. Then it is

I drown again with all those dim

Lost faces I never understood, my poor soul

Screams out in the starlight, heart

Breaks loose and rolls down like a stone.

Include me in your lamentations.

Derek Mahon

27.2 In ‘After the Titanic’ and in ‘Survivor’s Guilt’, both speakers describe attitudes to life

after a crisis.


attitudes?

(8 marks)

Survivor’s Guilt

How I’ve changed may not be apparent.

I limp. Read and write, make tea at the stove

as I practiced in rehab. Sometimes, like fire,

a task overwhelms me. I cry for days, shriek

when the phone rings. Like a page pulled from flame,

I’m singed but intact: I don’t burn down the house.

Later, cleared to drive, I did outpatient rehab. Others

lost legs or clutched withered minds in their hands.

A man who can’t speak recognized me

and held up his finger. I knew he meant

One year since your surgery. Sixteen since his.

Guadalupe wishes daily to be the one before. Nobody

is that. Sometimes, like love, the neurons just cross fire.

You don’t get everything back.

Patricia Kirkpatrick



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27.1 In ‘That Feeling’, how does the poet present the ways the speaker feels about being

in the sea?

(24 marks)

That Feeling

Floating does it for me I feel free in the sea you can’t rest on a wavecrest but still you can pull through the blue like the hull of a ship or the keel of a heron that’s rowing the sky to swim is to fly as weightless as air in the sea I defy gravity I am free in the sea floating does it for me Jan Dean

27.2 In ‘That Feeling’ and in ‘It is Everywhere’, both speakers describe feelings of

freedom.


feelings?

(8 marks)

It is Everywhere

Green leaves. Wind kissed. Closed palms. Fresh hope. Deep river. Free flow. No signs. Open road. Wide sky. Grow wings. Feel light. Dream big. No frame. New eyes. From dark. Find light. Hug air. Laugh loud. Breathe deep. Dance wild. Smile wide. Shut eyes. Hold chest. Close mind. Ask cloud. Ask wind. Ask earth. Ask field. How to live free? Hold on. Let Go. Give trust. Lend heart. Fall down. Get up. Eat fear. Drink hope. Remi Graves



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27.1 In ‘First Frost’, how does the poet present the ways the speaker feels about the cold

weather?

(24 marks)

First Frost A girl is freezing in a telephone booth, huddled in her flimsy coat, her face stained by tears and smeared with lipstick. She breathes on her thin little fingers. Fingers like ice. Glass beads in her ears. She has to beat her way back alone down the icy street. First frost. A beginning of losses. The first frost of telephone phrases. It is the start of winter glittering on her cheek, the first frost of having been hurt. Andrei Vosnesensky

27.2 In ‘First Frost’ and in ‘Hard Frost’, both speakers describe attitudes towards

weather.


attitudes?

(8 marks)

Hard Frost

Frost called to the water Halt And crusted the moist snow with sparkling salt; Brooks, their one bridges, stop, And icicles in long stalactites drop. And tench in water-holes Lurk under gluey glass like fish in bowls. In the hard-rutted lane At every footstep breaks a brittle pane, And tinkling trees ice-bound, Changed into weeping willows, sweep the ground; Dead boughs take root in ponds And ferns on windows shoot their ghostly fronds. But vainly the fierce frost Interns poor fish, ranks trees in an armed host, Hangs daggers from house-eaves And on the windows ferny ambush weaves; In the long war grown warmer The sun will strike him dead and strip his armour. Andrew J Young



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27.1 In ‘First Love’, how does the poet present the ways the speaker feels about falling in

love?

(24 marks)

First Love Falling in love was like falling down the stairs Each stair had her name on it And he went bouncing down each one like a tongue-tied lunatic One day of loving her was an ordinary year He transformed her into what he wanted And the scent from her Was the best scent in the world Fifteen he was fifteen Each night he dreamed of her Each day he telephoned her Each day was unfamiliar Scary even And the fear of her going weighed on him like a stone And when he could not see her for two nights running It seemed a century had passed And meeting her and staring at her face He knew he would feel as he did forever Hopelessly in love Sick with it And not even knowing her second name yet It was the first time The best time A time that would last forever Because it was new Because he was ignorant it could ever end It was endless Brian Patten

27.2 In ‘First Love’ and in ‘Valentine’, both speakers describe feelings of love.


feelings?

(8 marks)

Valentine

My heart has made its mind up

And I'm afraid it's you.

Whatever you've got lined up,


And if you can't be signed up

This year, next year will do.


And I'm afraid it's you.

Wendy Cope



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27.1 In ‘Ex-Miner’, how does the poet present the ways the speaker feels about growing

old?

(24 marks)

Ex-Miner The man next door to me was a miner Until the dust filled his lungs like coal-sacks; Now he’s good for nothing so he says. Now he walks in slippers and leans on walls, And eats the clean air while his eyes fix on Reaching the bottom of his garden. His wife hides the Woodbines* ‘for his own good’, The pub’s half-a-day’s walk away for him And it’s cruel crawling to the privy**. So few pleasures remain to him That he takes a grim-sour joy in rudeness To neighbours: he savours the honorary title Of old misery-guts like a vintage wine. His other treat’s to stand upright each day And not to bang his head against the sky. Adrian Burke *Woodbines = brand of cigarettes **privy = outside toilet

27.2 In ‘Ex-Miner’ and in ‘Abandoned Farmhouse’, both speakers describe attitudes

towards elderly people.


attitudes?

(8 marks)

Abandoned Farmhouse

He was a big man, says the size of his shoes on a pile of broken dishes by the house; a tall man too, says the length of the bed in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man, says the Bible with a broken back on the floor below the window, dusty with sun; but not a man for farming, say the fields cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn. A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves covered with oilcloth, and they had a child, says the sandbox made from a tractor tire. Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole. And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames. It was lonely here, says the narrow country road. Something went wrong, says the empty house in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste. And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard like branches after a storm—a rubber cow, a rusty tractor with a broken plow, a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say. Ted Kooser

section c unseen poetry - the phoenix collegiate...section c – unseen poetry answer both questions...

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