The Path to Poetry Perfection – TEN STEPS
1 DON’T VIEW POETRY AS THE ENEMY
It’s easy to dislike a literary format that you have little interaction with in every day life. We associate movies with enjoyable trips to the cinema with friends, and have all found novels, articles or magazines we can enjoy but sadly, for most, poetry remains the preserve of school and exams- the enemy. Try to see your preparation for English Paper 2 as a chance to learn about an art form that you may never get to study again. At the most unexpected of moments in life you will find words from the poems you memorise this year helping you describe experiences you cannot verbalise yourself. Hazlitt said that ‘Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life’ and as the years roll by you’ll be shocked to realise that all that ‘practical’ stuff you learned in Maths and Biology will be long gone from your memory but lines from Frost and Montague will be etched on your heart forever.
2 READ POETRY THAT IS NOT ON THE COURSE!
This may seem like madness to some but reading a wide variety of poetry will help prepare you for the Unseen Poetry section and benefit your Prescribed Poetry also. If preparing a Philip Larkin essay, for example, why not read a few more poems by him to see if what you’re saying about his style is actually true. I highly recommend ‘This Be The Verse’. Try some of these websites if you don’t know where to start poemhunter.com, poetryoutloud.org and poetrybyheart.org.uk
Don’t worry if you don’t understand every single word of a poem. It’s more important to think about how a poem makes you feel and the images that stay with you after you finish reading it.
3 MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND
Your teacher will be handing you reams of notes ‘explaining’ the meaning of the poems on your course and it will be tempting to learn these off by heart to use in the exam. It won’t get you a H1, however, or even a H2. To do well in Leaving Cert English you have to think for yourself and formulate your own opinions: “Students should be able to develop an awareness of their own responses, affective, imaginative, and intellectual, to aesthetic texts.”
By all means read a range of notes and criticism but ultimately you need to build your own relationship with these poets – to connect your own life experience with theirs. Do this well in advance of the exam day, as you won’t have much time for pondering your innermost feelings on Hopkins in the exam hall.
4 UNDERSTAND THE NUTS AND BOLTS
Familiarise yourself with the technical terms of poetry and don’t be afraid to use them e.g. stanza, metre, rhyme, metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, tone, imagery etc. There are glossaries of terms in a lot of the poetry textbooks or easily available online so there’s no excuse for pleading ignorance. Only use technical terms, however, if they are relevant to the point you’re making or back up your argument in some way. Trying to show off knowledge of terms just for the sake of it won’t impress an examiner. A simple rule is to only talk about technique in the context of its effect on the reader.
5 DON’T RELY ON ONE POET
You simply cannot count on the one poet you want to come up being there on your exam paper. The State Examinations Commission is deliberately trying to make the exam less predictable so counting on patterns or predictions is unreliable. The only surefire way of being prepared for June is by knowing FIVE poets really well. The manner of questioning has also become a lot more specific over the past few years so, even if that poet you love does come up, the question might not suit your knowledge of them.
6 DON’T PARAPHRASE THE POETS
The Chief Examiner for English has criticised Leaving Cert English students for being prone to paraphrasing or summarising both the unseen poem and studied poetry: “While the majority of answers engaged with the text in a positive way, some merely paraphrased the poem or offered undeveloped responses.” At Higher Level they expect deeper analysis, criticism and personal engagement. See number 3 again if you don’t believe me!
7 DON’T FOCUS TOO MUCH ON THE POET’S LIFE STORY
We teachers spend a lot of time filling students in on the context of a poem being studied; the life of the poet, the history of the era etc. When it comes to the exam question, however, you need to focus entirely on the poems and not on the exciting lives of the poets who wrote them. It may fascinate us that Hopkins converted to Catholicism or that Larkin was a librarian but giving a heap of biographical detail unrelated to the question will earn you zero marks. Biography can help us understand the poems but the examiner is far more interested in what you made of the poetry than how many facts about Frost you’ve memorised.
8 MAKE IT PERSONAL
Don’t write about the poet or poetry in the passive voice ie “Frost is considered to be one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets…’ All Leaving Cert poetry questions are addressed directly to YOU and need to be answered by YOU, for example, ‘I agreed wholeheartedly with Hopkins’s criticism of humanity’s treatment of nature’. A personal example of how you connected with a poem will go a long way towards showing the examiner that you have engaged with the poetry on a personal level rather than simply learning off notes.
9 READ THE QUESTION
You could be a professor in Frost studies at Frost University, Frost-ville and you could still fail the poetry question unless you READ the question on the exam paper and then ANSWER that question. You are being assessed on HOW you answer that question so make that your focus.
10 SIGNPOST YOUR ANSWER
READ THE QUESTION! Did I say that already? Read it and then focus all your energy on answering that question and on showing the examiner that you are answering it by signposting clearly. Don’t signpost it like a botharín in West Kerry with the sign pointing wonkily into a field. Signpost your answer like you’re on a German Autobahn – clearly, logically and at regular intervals.