Poetry (Paper 2)
The task
Paper 2, Section III is worth 70 marks. It contains an unseen poem question and questions on the poets you have studied. It tests close reading, technique analysis and a genuine personal response.
Unseen poem
- Read twice: first for situation and speaker, second with a pen, marking the turn or shift.
- Identify form and technique: stanza shape, rhyme, enjambment, caesura, imagery, tone.
- Every technique named needs an effect on the reader.
Studied poet
- Know five or six poems in detail: theme, imagery, structure and tone.
- Prepare to discuss the poet's style across poems, not one poem in isolation.
- Quote accurately and briefly, then analyse.
- Choose the poet you can write about most precisely, and answer the question actually asked about that poet.
Worked example
Unseen poem question: "How does the poet convey a sense of loss?" Reasoning: establish the tone first, perhaps elegiac and restrained. Then choose two moments - an image such as an empty chair, and a formal feature such as a short, halted final line. Write: "The single-word final line leaves the poem suspended, mirroring the speaker's inability to finish the mourning." That sentence names the technique, shows its effect and answers "how".
Traps
- Paraphrasing the poem rather than analysing it.
- Naming a technique with no comment on effect.
- Confusing the poet with the speaker.
- Misquoting a studied poem.
- Writing everything you know about a poet rather than answering the question.