‘The Manhunt’ by Simon Armitage

Summary• The narrator is the wife of a soldier who has come home from war with serious gun shot wounds

• It is more difficult to see and understand his mental scars and the problems these cause

Themes

• Pain and suffering

Feelings

• Caring; patience; pain

Links to…

• ‘Nettles’ - the suffering of a loved one

• ‘Sonnet 116’ - ideal love (continues through difficult times)

Key quotes• ‘the parachute silk of his punctured lung’

• ‘I picture the scan, / the foetus of metal’

• ‘a sweating, unexploded mine / buried deep in his mind’

• ‘I come close’

‘Hour’ by Carol Ann Duffy

Summary• Describes and hour spent between the narrator and her lover

• The poet personifies time as love’s enemy

• Love almost manages to make time stand still

Themes

• Love against time

Feelings

• Cherishing the moment; strong belief in love; physical pleasure

Links to…

• ‘To His Coy Mistress’ - time as the enemy of love

• ‘Sonnet 116’ - time and love; personification

Key quotes• ‘Love’s time’s beggar’

• ‘For thousands of seconds, we kiss’

• ‘Now. Time hates love,’

• ‘love spins gold, gold, gold from straw’

‘In Paris with You’ by James Fenton

Summary• The narrator is upset about love - he’s split up with someone and sees himself as a victim

• He’s gone to Paris with someone else, but still seems unhappy

• He doesn’t want to go out in the city - he’d rather stay in the hotel room

Themes

• Negative emotions and hurt

Feelings

• Self pity; bitterness; humour; lust

Links to…

• ‘To His Coy Mistress’ - narrator as seducer; humour

• ‘Sister Maude’ - anger

• ‘Quickdraw’ - being hurt by someone

Key quotes• ‘I get tearful when I’ve downed a drink or two’

• ‘I’m a hostage’

• ‘Don’t talk to me of love’

• ‘all points south’

‘Quickdraw’ by Carol Ann Duffy

Summary• The poem compares phone calls and texts in a relationship to a gun fight in a Western movie

• The narrator always seems to come off worst, and is left hurt

• What ‘finishes her off’ isn’t cruelty but text message kisses, which hit her like bullets

Themes

• Attitudes towards love; hurt

Feelings

• Hurt; expectation; tension

Links to…

• ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ + ‘In Paris with You’ - hurt from love

• ‘The Manhunt’ - communication

Key quotes• ‘like guns, slung from the pockets of my hips’

• ‘your voice a pellet / in my ear’

• ‘the silver bullets of your kiss’

• ‘high noon, calamity, hard liquor / in the old Last Chance saloon’

‘Ghazal’ by Mimi Khalvati

Summary• The narrator is talking about intense feeling of love

• In each stanza, she creates a new image to portray love through imagery

Themes

• Attitudes towards love; lust

Feelings

• Intense love; playfulness; pleasure

Links to…

• ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ + ‘Nettles’ + ‘Hour’ - natural imagery

• ‘To His Coy Mistress’ + ‘Hour’ - lust

Key quotes• ‘iron fist in the velvet glove’

• ‘charmer, use your charm, weave a spell and subdue me’

• ‘don’t hang / on my lips’

• ‘I’ll be twice the me’

‘Brothers’ by Andrew Forster

Summary• The narrator remembers a moment from childhood when he and his older brother had to look after their younger brother

• They are fed up with him, but excited to be out on their own

• They send their younger brother home to get bus fare then run off, leaving him behind

Themes

• Family relationships

Feelings

• Frustration; guilt; regret

Links to…

• ‘Nettles’ - reflecting on a childhood incident

• ‘Sister Maude’ - an unhappy event in a sibling relationship

Key quotes• ‘Saddled with you’

• ‘spouting six-year-old views’

• ‘we must stroll’

• ‘unable to close the distance’

‘Praise Song for My Mother’ by Grace Nichols

Summary• The mum in the poem was the whole world to her child

• The narrator compares her mum to water and food - vital for life

• Also compares her mum to moon and the sun

Themes

• Parental love

Feelings

• Gratitude; joy; praise

Links to…

• ‘Harmonium’ - narrator’s relationship with a parent

• ‘Nettles’ - parent child relationships

• ‘Ghazal’ - natural imagery

Key quotes• ‘You were water to me’

• ‘deep and bold and fathoming’

• ‘replenishing replenishing’

• ‘Go to your wide futures’

‘Harmonium’ by Simon Armitage

Summary• The narrator and his dad are picking up a harmonium that he’s bought cheaply from a church

• He thinks about how time has affected the instrument

• His dad is helping him take it away and he makes a joke about death which makes the narrator uncomfortable

Themes

• Family relationships; unhappiness

Feelings

• Speechlessness; humour; sadness

Links to…

• ‘Nettles’ - unhappiness sometimes found in good family relationships

Key quotes• ‘bundled off to the skip’

• ‘hummed harmonics still struck a chord’

• ‘one of its notes had lost its tongue’

• ‘the next box I’ll shoulder through this nave’

‘Sonnet 116’ by William Shakespeare

Summary• Shakespeare is writing about how constant true love is

• True love doesn’t change when circumstances change

• He says that if what he says isn’t true, then he never wrote anything and nobody has ever been in love. Since we know he did write and people have loved, he’s saying his words are true

Themes

• Attitudes towards love

Feelings

• Devotion; constancy; true love

Links to…

• ‘Sonnet 43’ - the ideal version of love

• ‘To His Coy Mistress’ - the effects of ageing on love

Key quotes• ‘Time’s fool’

• ‘edge of doom’

• ‘It is the star to every wand’ring bark’

• ‘Admit impediments’

‘Sonnet 43’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Summary• This is a love poem, written for the poet’s lover, Robert Browning

• She loves him so much that she sees their love as spiritual and sacred

• She counts the different ways that she loves him

• She believes that her love is so great that she will even love him after death

Themes

• True love

Feelings

• Deep and lasting love; unselfish love; virtue

Links to…

• ‘Ghazal’ - different aspects of narrator’s love

• ‘To His Coy Mistress’ - this poem is opposite of Browning’s idea that love lasts beyond the grave

Key quotes• ‘How do I love thee?’

• ‘Smiles, tears, of all my life!’

• ‘I shall but love thee better after death.’

• ‘with my childhood’s faith’

‘To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell

Summary• The narrator is telling the woman that he loves that she shouldn’t play hard to get - there isn’t time

• He says that they should enjoy each other whilst they are young and attractive

• He uses a lot of different arguments to seduce her

Themes

• The passage of time; seduction; death

Feelings

• Impatience; urgency; reluctance

Links to…

• ‘Sonnet 116’ + ‘Sonnet 43’ - the effects of time and death

• ‘Hour’ + ‘In Paris with You’ - lust and physical love

Key quotes• ‘Deserts of vast eternity’

• ‘My vegetable love should grow’

• ‘Now’

• ‘like amorous birds of prey’

‘The Farmer’s Bride’ by Charlotte Mew

Summary• A farmer has been married for 3 years, but his bride is still frightened of him

• He tells the story of how the relationship went wrong

• He finds her rejection almost unbearable. By the end he seems to be struggling to resist taking her by force

Themes

• Unhappy love

Feelings

• Frustration; desire; fear

Links to…

• ‘Hour’ + ‘In Paris with You’ - love as an intense experience

• ‘To His Coy Mistress’ - frustrated narrator

Key quotes• ‘Shy as a leveret, swift as he’

• ‘Straight and slight as a young larch tree’

• ‘poor maid’

• ‘her hair, her hair!’

‘Sister Maude’ by Christina Rossetti

Summary• The poem’s narrator has kept her boyfriend a secret from her parents - but her sister has told them about him

• The narrator is angry with his sister for this and her boyfriend’s death

Themes

• Intense emotions; family relationships

Feelings

• Betrayal; jealousy; anger

Links to…

• ‘Sonnet 43’ + ‘Sonnet 116’ - intense feelings

• ‘Brothers’ - family relationships

Key quotes• ‘comeliest corpse’

• ‘Cold he lies, as cold as stone / With his clotted curls’

• ‘shall get no sleep / Either early or late’

• ‘Bide you with death and sin’

‘Nettles’ by Vernon Scannell

Summary• The narrator’s son has fallen into a bed of nettles and is badly stung

• His father comforts him, then cuts down the nettles, however they grow back 2 weeks later

• The story shows how parents can’t always protect their children from pain

Themes

• Feelings about loved ones; family relationships

Feelings

• Anger; revenge; tenderness; helplessness

Links to…

• ‘Born Yesterday’ - the hopes and fears that adults have for children

• ‘Sister Maude’ - anger; family relationships

Key quotes• ‘regiment of spite’

• ‘those green spears’

• ‘blisters beaded’

• ‘that fierce parade’

‘Born Yesterday’ by Philip Larkin

Summary• Larkin write this poem the day after the birth of his friend’s daughter

• He takes the fairy tale idea of giving out wishes to a newborn, but his wish is not for great beauty or exciting things - he wishes for practical, useful talents

Themes

• Priorities; family relationships

Feelings

• Tenderness; scorn; realism

Links to…

• ‘Sonnet 116’ - the idea that the usual poetic celebration of beauty is unimportant

• ‘To His Coy Mistress’ - the idea that the values of others are unrealistic, wishful thinking

Key quotes• ‘Tightly-folded bud’

• ‘May you be ordinary’

• ‘Not ugly, not good-looking’

• ‘’Catching of happiness’