Armies of ignorance conquer all in Matthew Arnold’s dark and disturbing vision of the world.
ReadTag: IGCSE Poem Analysis
The Three Fates
Rosemary Dobson’s unique backwards-poem reminds us that, however much we might want to, we can’t change the past.
ReadWritten Near a Port on a Dark Evening
Charlotte Smith negotiates the shifting sands of life in this dark and stormy sonnet.
ReadThe Caged Skylark
Gerard Manley Hopkins explores what it feels like to be trapped in your skin.
ReadWatching For Dolphins
David Constantine wonders if there isn’t something more to life than meets the eye.
ReadStoryteller
Liz Lochhead casts a spell in this magical realist poem.
ReadThe Poplar-Field
William Cowper visits a woody riverbank by which he passed many pleasant childhood days… to find it irrevocably changed.
ReadPlenty
Isobel Dixon shows us that older really does mean wiser as she reminisces ruefully about her childhood.
ReadYou Will Know When You Get There
Allen Curnow suggests that there’s a right time to die in this tough, but rewarding, poem.
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