E s s a y t o p i c s f o r p o e t r y

The study of poetry is designed to address the ideas, experiences, and emotions that poets explore and express, and the
particular language techniques and stylistic features they use. Students should therefore be made familiar with aspects of
style, imagery, word choice, and technique so that they develop an awareness of the poet’s role in constructing the text to
shape the response of the reader, and of the interaction of poet and reader. The study allows students to consider a range
of interpretations and readings.
The study of poetry is a shared class activity in which teachers, in negotiation with students, choose a range of
poems that total at least 1000 lines and focus on the works of at least three poets. At least two of the poets must be
chosen from the list of prescribed texts; the remaining poet or poets may be chosen from other sources. The selection
must allow students to consider and compare the works of the chosen poets but could also include a wider range of
poems to cover students’ individual interests and choices, particularly if the teacher organises the study of poetry
around a theme.
English Subject Outline, p.52, 2010

For your essay in response to this study, a majority of the poems you choose should therefore be the work of poets from
the prescribed list, (see the Contents of our Temporary Boxes anthology). Due to the 1,000 word maximum for all shared
writing tasks, restrict yourself to the detailed analysis of between two and four poems by different poets. To write at any
depth about more than this within that word length will reduce the level of analysis in your essay. While you could refer to
more poems in passing, the core poems you choose need to form a substantial basis to your argument in response to a
topic.

Choose one of the following topics* and write a 1000 word essay in response, referring to the range of poems and poets
defined above.

1. ‘Life: futile or fulfilling?’

In what different ways do the poets you studied this year explore this question?

2. Compare the ways in which the poets you studied this year create pictures with words in order to engage
the heart and mind of the reader.

3. How did the poets you studied use the experiences of individuals to illustrate aspects of life that matter
to us all?

4. “Poetry’s emotional impact comes more from the way it is composed than from its subject matter.”
Discuss this statement in relation to the poetry you studied.

5. How has your study of poetry this year enabled you to see the different ways in which poets explore the
same subject?

6. Compare the techniques that the poets you studied this year use to explore the idea that truly significant
battles are fought within oneself.

7. Compare the ways in which the poets you studied this year use places to present ideas.

8. Compare the ways in which the poets you studied this year explore one or more of the following:
• Anger • Awe • Acceptance • Distress • Delight.

Note particularly that the analysis of poetic techniques is necessary even if the chosen question does not
explicitly refer to any.

* These questions have been adapted from the SACE Board’s examination papers of 2004, 2008 and 2010, all of which have used
questions on poetry for their compulsory Section A.