Poetry Revision: MacCaig and Duffy

Poetry Revision: MacCaig and Duffy

General Knowledge1. Where did MacCaig spend most of his life (city)?2. What title does Carol Ann Duffy hold?3. What year was she granted this title?4. Name 3 features of a dramatic monologue. (3 marks)5. Why is free verse important to ‘Visiting Hour’?6. Name 4 themes from the two poems. (4 marks)7. What is the total amount of lines of all 3 poems studiedTotal: 11

Answers1. Edinburgh2. Poet Laureate3. 20094. Adopted persona; rhetorical language; critical situation; character creates

sympathy; speech gives clues about identity; silent but implied audience; clues to character’s past/history through speech.

5. It mirrors the narrator’s confused/convoluted state of mind.6. Death; isolation; hopelessness; futility of life; fragility of life; human

suffering.7. S.S = 24. V.H = 38 A.V:FM = 36 Total = 98

Poem test• Write out ‘Visiting Hour’ first.• Number ones take the first line, number twos the second, and so

forth…

• 2 marks for each correct verse

• 7 minutes

Candle timer

Do the same for ‘Shooting Stars’

Explosives timer

Annotation ChallengeNurses walk lightly, swiftly,

here and up and down and there,

their slender waists miraculously

carrying their burden

of so much pain, so

many deaths, their eyes

still clear after

so many farewells.

Ward 7. She lies

in a white cave of forgetfulness.

A withered hand

trembles on its stalk.

•After I no longer speak they break our fingers

to salvage my wedding ring. Rebecca Rachel Ruth

Aaron Emmanuel David, stars on all our brows

Beneath the gaze of men with guns. Mourn for our daughters,

upright as statues, brave. You would not look at me.

You waited for the bullet. Fell. I say, Remember.

Remember those appalling days which make the world

forever bad. One saw I was alive. Loosened

After immense suffering someone takes tea on the lawn.

After the terrible moans a boy washes his uniform.

After the history lesson children run to their toys the world

turns in its sleep the spades shovel soil Sara Ezra…

Annotation Challenge –answers.Nurses walk lightly, swiftly,

here and up and down and there,

their slender waists miraculously

carrying their burden

of so much pain, so

many deaths, their eyes

still clear after

so many farewells.

Ward 7. She lies

in a white cave of forgetfulness.

A withered hand

trembles on its stalk.

•After I no longer speak they break our fingers

to salvage my wedding ring. Rebecca Rachel Ruth

Aaron Emmanuel David, stars on all our brows

Beneath the gaze of men with guns. Mourn for our daughters,

upright as statues, brave. You would not look at me.

You waited for the bullet. Fell. I say, Remember.

Remember those appalling days which make the world

forever bad. One saw I was alive. Loosened

After immense suffering someone takes tea on the lawn.

After the terrible moans a boy washes his uniform.

After the history lesson children run to their toys the world

turns in its sleep the spades shovel soil Sara Ezra…

Plan out the essay – 6 mins• Choose a poem which deals with loneliness or isolation.• Show how the poem explores the theme, and discuss to what extent

your appreciation of the theme was deepened by the poet’s treatment.

• Choose a poem in which the tone is sinister or seductive or cynical. Show how the poem creates this tone and discuss its relative importance in your appreciation of the poem.

• Choose a poem in which there is a powerful evocation of place.• Show how the poet powerfully evokes a specific place to explore an

important theme.

Tie breaker• How old is Carol Ann Duffy?