A list of potential essay questions to form revision and speed planning practice:
Compare the ways in which poets explore the idea of getting older in To My Nine-Year-Old Self by Helen Dunmore and one other poem of your choice from Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002–2011.
Compare the ways in which identity is presented in Look We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra and one other poem of your choice from Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002-2011
Compare the ways in which poets write about modernity in Please Hold by Ciaran O’Driscoll and one other poem of your choice from Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002–2011.
Compare the ways in which poets write about people encountering different countries or cultures in The Deliverer by Tishani Doshi and one other poem of your choice from Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002–2011.
Compare the ways in which poets express a political point of view in Song by George Szirtes and one other poem of your choice from Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002–2011.
Compare the ways in which poets create a sense of place in Seamus Heaney’s Out of the Bag and one other poem of your choice from Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002–2011.
‘Time is something that is always changing.’ Discuss this statement in light of Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn by Tim Turnbull and one other poem of your choice from Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002–2011.
‘Relationships are marked by loss.’ Consider this viewpoint in light of The Map-woman by Carol Ann Duffy and one other poem of your choice from Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002–2011.
Compare the ways power and control is presented in Eat Me by Patience Agbabi and one other poem of your choice from Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002–2011.
Compare how the body is presented in Out of the Bag by Seamus Heaney and one other poem of your choice from Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002–2011.
Awaken English 