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• ​For GCSE poetry, we will study 15 poems all linked to the topic of 'Power and Conflict'.

  ​In your GCSE exam, you will have to compare how a topic is presented in two of the poems.

• ​You will need to remember the key ideas and quotations for each of the 15 poems.

• ​You will be expected to analyse the poets' methods and their effects.

• ​You will also have to analyse two 'unseen' poems: you will not have studied these before (this is why they are called 'unseen' poems).

Subject terminology

​When analysing poems, you need to be able to use subject terminology to name the poets' methods.

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This includes things we've studied before, such as:

• ​metaphor - a non-literal comparison of one thing to another

• ​verb - an action or state of being (doing/being word)

• ​sensory language - words and phrases that play on the senses

• ​personification - giving human qualities to something non-human

• ​tone - the expression of a mood or attitude

• ​command (imperative) - a demand or instruction

Subject terminology

​There are other terms that apply to plays and other literature which we can apply to some poems, too. For example:

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• ​​perspective - first person (I, me, we), third person (he, she, they)

• ​monologue - a long speech by one character (some poems are monologues)

• ​setting - where and when events take place

• ​shift - a change in something such as atmosphere, time or focus

• ​juxtaposition - two things placed together, creating a contrast for effect

Subject terminology: poetic terms

You will also be expected to use poetic terms, such as the ones below.

• ​​speaker - the 'voice' of the poem: who the poet is writing as

• ​rhyme

• ​rhyme scheme - the pattern of rhyme in a poem

• ​stanza - a section/verse of a poem

• ​quatrain - a four-line stanza

• ​sonnet - a fourteen-line poem, often about love, with a set rhyme scheme

• ​caesura - a pause, created by punctuation, in the middle of a line of poetry

• ​free verse - a form of poetry where there are no set patterns of line length or rhyme (it has no set structure)

• ​refrain - a repeated phrase or line