Each poetry anthology at GCSE contains 15 poems, and in your exam question you will be given one poem - printed in full - and asked to compare this printed poem to another. As this is a closed-book exam, you will not have access to the second poem, so you will have to know it from memory. Fifteen poems is a lot to revise. However, understanding four things will enable you to produce a top-grade response:
- The meaning of the poem
- The ideas and messages of the poet
- How the poet conveys these ideas through their methods
- How these ideas compare and contrast with the ideas of other poets in the anthology
Below is a guide to Charles Causley’s Eden Rock, from the Love and Relationships anthology. It includes:
- Overview: a breakdown of the poem, including its possible meanings and interpretations
- Writer’s Methods: an exploration of the poet’s techniques and methods
- Context: an exploration of the context of the poem, relevant to its themes
- What to compare it to: ideas about which poems to compare it to in the exam