Poetry anthology · GCSE English Literature

The exam question

One poem from your cluster is printed. You compare it with one other poem of your choice from the same cluster (30 marks). The poems themselves aren't printed here: use your anthology alongside these notes.

Ozymandias (Shelley): a ruined statue of a boastful king in the desert shows that human power doesn't last. London (Blake): a walk through a city full of suffering, blaming those in power. Extract from The Prelude (Wordsworth): a boy's night-time boat trip, where a huge mountain seems to rise and follow him, showing nature's power.
My Last Duchess (Browning): a Duke's dramatic monologue suggesting he had his wife killed. The Charge of the Light Brigade (Tennyson): cavalry ride to their deaths in the Crimean War after a mistaken order. Exposure (Owen): First World War soldiers suffer and die in freezing weather.
Storm on the Island (Heaney): islanders face a powerful storm. Bayonet Charge (Hughes): a soldier's terrified charge. Remains (Armitage): a soldier haunted by killing a looter. Poppies (Weir): a mother's grief as her son leaves for war. War Photographer (Duffy): a photographer's anger at people's indifference to suffering.
Tissue (Dharker): paper as fragile but powerful, like human life. The Emigrée (Rumens): memories of a city the speaker left as a child. Checking Out Me History (Agard): an attack on the one-sided history taught at school. Kamikaze (Garland): a Japanese pilot turns back and is shunned by his family.

When We Two Parted (Byron): bitterness after a secret affair ends. Love's Philosophy (Shelley): a speaker uses nature to persuade someone to love him. Porphyria's Lover (Browning): a disturbing dramatic monologue in which the speaker kills his lover. Sonnet 29, 'I think of thee!' (Barrett Browning): longing for a lover. Neutral Tones (Hardy): a bleak memory of love ending.
Letters from Yorkshire (Dooley): a long-distance relationship kept alive by letters. The Farmer's Bride (Mew): a farmer's young wife fears him. Walking Away (Day-Lewis): a father watching his son grow independent. Eden Rock (Causley): a memory or vision of parents waiting.
Follower (Heaney): a son following his farming father, and how their roles reverse. Mother, any distance (Armitage): a son leaving home. Before You Were Mine (Duffy): a daughter imagines her mother's life before she was born. Winter Swans (Sheers): a couple reconciling. Singh Song! (Nagra): a newlywed shopkeeper's joyful love. Climbing My Grandfather (Waterhouse): a grandchild's love, imagining climbing him like a mountain.

Power of humans: Ozymandias, My Last Duchess, London. Power of nature: The Prelude, Storm on the Island, Exposure. The reality of war: Bayonet Charge, Remains, Exposure, The Charge of the Light Brigade. Memory and loss: Poppies, The Emigrée, Kamikaze, War Photographer.
Parents and children: Walking Away, Follower, Mother, any distance, Before You Were Mine, Climbing My Grandfather, Eden Rock. Bitter or lost love: When We Two Parted, Neutral Tones. Controlling love: Porphyria's Lover, The Farmer's Bride.

Compare throughout, not one poem then the other. Compare ideas and methods: language, structure and form. Use short quotations, and use context where it helps explain the poets' ideas.

Some schools study AQA's newer Worlds and Lives cluster instead. Its older poems are Lines Written in Early Spring (Wordsworth), England in 1819 (Shelley), Shall earth no more inspire thee (Emily Brontë) and In a London Drawingroom (George Eliot).
The modern poems are On an Afternoon Train from Purley to Victoria, 1955 (James Berry), Name Journeys (Raman Mundair), pot (Shamshad Khan), A Wider View (Seni Seneviratne), Homing (Liz Berry), A Century Later (Imtiaz Dharker), The Jewellery Maker (Louisa Adjoa Parker), With Birds You're Never Lonely (Raymond Antrobus), A Portable Paradise (Roger Robinson), Like an Heiress (Grace Nichols) and Thirteen (Caleb Femi).
The exam question works in the same way, so the comparison skills above apply.

Edexcel has its own anthology, with four collections: Relationships, Conflict, Time and Place, and Belonging. One poem is printed, and you compare it with another from the same collection.
OCR's anthology has three clusters: Love and Relationships, Conflict, and Youth and Age. You compare a poem from your cluster with an unseen poem, then write about another poem from the cluster.
The poems are different from AQA's, so check your board's list, but the comparison skills here apply to every board.