Use these questions to practice your essential analysis and comparison skills, either as a challenge for AS practice, or for the A Level exam. Each section of the book takes place on a different frontier. In an interview with The Paris Review about the collection, Hong said, “To dream of the frontier is also to desire immortality. But there is no such thing as new territory. There are always previous civilizations, societies, families, and cultures. So when we build new worlds, there will be violence.” At a time when a new frontier feels like just another place for a billionaire to ruin, there’s something especially comforting in Hong’s naming this ruination. Don’t Call Us Dead is a collection both universal and highly personal, as, I think, all the best poetry is. But it also feels both of our present time and timeless, both defined by and defining. – Jessie Gaynor, Social Media Editor

Transgression and Taboo: The idea of a ‘feeder’ role within a relationship is very much linked to sexual ideas, and that someone could have strong control over another person’s life. This isn’t talked about much within society and is typically avoided due to people’s discomfort with discussing things of this nature. There is also the idea of discussion of the female body, particularly in this rather grotesque way. It is the perfect introduction to a wide range of contemporary poetry: works that speak of violence, danger and fear, of love and all that opposes love, in forms of language broken and reshaped by the need to communicate what it is to be alive now, here. The very rigid form of the poem helps to represent the strict regime imposed by the feeder, and how it has become commonplace. There are a total of ten tercet stanzas, which adds to the overall regimented mood. In addition, there is assonance between the final words on the first and third lines of each stanza, such as “cake” and “weight”, with an alternative form of assonance in each line which breaks from the traditional idea of using rhyme. This is a very interesting rhyme scheme for a reader because it enables variety of language while still maintaining a sense of conformity and expectations, potentially echoing the expectations of the feeder. The Forward Prizes for Poetry have established themselves as central to the literary landscape of modern Britain. Andrew MarrThe ambition of Coste Lewis’s project is revealed in the precision of its limitations, as described in the first sentence of the prologue: The objectification in this line shows how much the man is using the woman for his pleasure, not for hers. The only focus is on what he wants and likes, without any regard for the woman. The repetition of “girls” can also be seen as patronising the woman, and can also be seen as showing her vulnerability by likening her more to a child than to an adult.

By emphasising the “rush”, it is clear that any pleasure the woman receives is short lived, with all the focus being on the man and with her needs not fully catered for. The alliteration of “fast food” helps to show the importance of this line to the poem, and also shows how unhealthy this relationship is, both in terms of the physical food being eaten and the mental appreciation between the two. Some may also interpret the line as representing an unhealthy addiction, both to the food and to the relationship. Bright Dead Things is organized into four untitled sections, the first of which opens with “How to Triumph Like a Girl,” which sets the tone for the collection to come—we will be in motion, we will wander, and we will not skirt genuine feeling in favor of irony. “I like the lady horses best, / how they make it all look easy, / like running 40 miles per hour / is as easy as taking a nap, or grass,” she writes. The speaker of the poem admits that she likes the horses mainly because they’re ladies, which means she might share something elemental with them. It means “that somewhere inside the delicate / skin of my body, there pumps / an 8-pound female horse heart.” This is a book that will not hesitate to talk about heart, to name that heart. patterns of imagery - light/natural/pastoral imagery? images of joy? of danger? - why do they repeat this imagery - how does this reinforce/reflect the poet’s messageCaroline Bird, Malika Booker, Mary Jean Chen, Tishani Doshi, Will Harris, Stephen Sexton, Danez Smith, Kae Tempest and more urn:lcp:poemsofdecadeant0000unse:epub:5f78bbd1-a51f-4fde-86ed-62ee464d2275 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier poemsofdecadeant0000unse Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s2d8jngc63v Invoice 1652 Isbn 9780571325405 The book is also artful, beautiful, sometimes funny, subtle when subtlety is required, razor sharp when that better suits her needs. It investigates memory and identity and the nature of narrative and self-doubt and self-expression. I don’t know anyone who has read it who was not profoundly moved by it. As Dan Chiasson put it in The New Yorker, “The realization at the end of this book sits heavily upon the heart: ‘This is how you are a citizen,’ Rankine writes. ‘Come on. Let it go. Move on.’ As Rankine’s brilliant, disabusing work, always aware of its ironies, reminds us, ‘moving on’ is not synonymous with ‘leaving behind.’” – Emily Temple, Senior Editor The selected poems cover a wide range of styles and subject matter, opening up plenty of material for discussion. It is often profitable to make connections between them, but in Edexcel Paper 3, students are asked to compare a previously unseen poem with one from Poems of the Decade . Arts, Humanities and Cultures • AQA A-level History: Britain 1851-1964: Challenge and Transformation

I will say that this list was the hardest we’ve done so far—poetry is extremely subjective, and true consensus was rare (except for Claudia Rankine, for whom almost everyone in the office voted). And NB that for this one, we excluded huge “collected poems” for range. So please feel extra free to add any of your own favorites that we’ve missed in the comments below. There is also the use of possessive language, such as “his” or even further objectification through the likening to objects, such as “his jacuzzi”. This would help to make the descriptions much more emotive for a reader who would recognise the strong objectification and mistreatment, therefore developing much more sympathy for the narrator. This in turn creates a strange mix of emotions by the end of the poem with the murder of the feeder, with readers potentially feeling happy that the woman has been freed but conflicted over the means of this escape. Childhood: This theme is brought into the poem through the ideas of transition away from childhood, while still retaining some imagery in the poem such as the physical descriptions of the girls. MAIN BODY: disagree - the poets come to a point of disagreement in their portrayals of how - in poem A, - on the other hand, poet B adopts a more - yet the reader becomes increasingly awareThe Forwards are among the world’s most coveted poetry honours. They are awarded annually for the Best Collection, Best First Collection and Best Single Poem published in Britain and Ireland and are recognised for bringing together familiar names and exciting new talent. These poems were previously prescribed by Edexcel, and as such we have commentary and analysis available. Poems of the Decade brings together more than one hundred poems from the many thousands submitted to the Forward Prizes for Poetry in the first decade of the 21st century. Friends, it’s true: the end of the decade approaches. It’s been a difficult, anxiety-provoking, morally compromised decade, but at least it’s been populated by some damn fine literature. We’ll take our silver linings where we can.