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Introduction to Unseen Poetry

 Spring Term 2024- North classes
This term we will focus on the following in our English lessons:
● Unseen Poetry
● Completion of the study of all of the Power and Conflict poems
● Reflection on December Literature exam: Shakespeare text and ‘Jekyll and
Hyde’
● Reflection on December English exam: Paper Two Reading and Writing
Week of January 29th during an English lesson :Unseen Poetry Assessment
● Revision of English Paper One Reading and Writing
● Revision of ‘An Inspector Calls’
March 11th: Assessment Week
English Paper One and English Literature Paper Two ( ‘An Inspector Calls’,
Power and Conflict Poetry, Unseen Poetry)
Unseen poetry
Paper 2 English Literature

Section A- An Inspector Calls

Section B- Power and Conflict
Section C- Unseen Poetry
Jumper by Tony Harrison

• What are the

connotations of a
jumper?

• Have you ever been

given a jumper
knitted by someone?
If so who? How did
it make you feel?
Read the question
The question:
In ‘Jumper’, how does the poet present the speaker’s feelings about
his mother?

What is the poem about? Mind-map with your partner.

In ‘Jumper’, how does the poet present the speaker’s feelings about his mother?

Message
Consider the message of
the poem first and then
how the language and
structure of the poem
supports that message.

Language Structure
Jumper by Tony Harrison

When I want some sort of human metronome

to beat calm celebration out of fear Glossary
like that when German bombs fell round our home
it’s my mother’s needles, knitting, that I hear, Metronome= a device used by musicians
the click of needles steady though walls shake. that marks time at a selected rate by giving
The stitches, plain or purl, were never dropped. a regular tick.
Bombs fell all that night until daybreak
but, not for a moment, did the knitting stop. Skein= a length of thread or yarn, loosely
Though we shivered in the cellar-shelter’s cold coiled and knotted.
and the whistling bombs sent shivers through the walls
I know now why she made her scared children hold
the skeins she wound so calmly into balls.

We open presents wrapped before she died.

With that same composure shown in that attack
she’d known the time to lay her wools aside –

the jumper I open’s shop-bought, and is black!

Questions
• How does the poet suggest that the speaker and his mother were in danger during
the bombing?
• Why do you think the speaker’s mother made him hold the wool as she was
knitting?
• What emotions does the poet put across? How does he show these in the poem?
• The poet uses the words ‘shivered’ and ‘shivers’ on consecutive lines. What effect
does this have?
• How are the last four lines different from the first twelve? Why do you think the
poet has done this?
• How does the poet use the senses in the poem? Do you think this is effective?
• Find an example of onomatopoeia in the poem and explain its effect.
• What do you notice about the rhythm of the poem? What effect does this have?
Mark Scheme: Unseen
Writing your unseen poetry response
In ‘Jumper’, how does the poet present the speaker’s feelings about his mother?

‘Jumper’ by Tony Harrison is written from the ……………. This helps

the reader to……
The poem is about his mother and the composure she shows in an air
raid……………….
The speaker feels …………….. ……………towards his mother….
The use of………….
This is reinforced through the………..
The structure reflects the ……………………………………………….
The rhyme scheme…..
Read the poem ‘Handbag’ by Ruth Fainlight

Message

Language Structure
Handbag by Ruth Fainlight
My mother's old leather handbag,
crowded with letters she carried
all through the war. The smell
of my mother's handbag: mints
and liptsick and Coty powder.
The look of those letters, softened
and worn at the edges, opened,
read, and refolded so often.
Letters from my father. Odour
of leather and powder, which ever
since then has meant womanliness,
and love, and anguish, and war.
Questions to consider
• What is the poem about?
• Why do you think the speaker is looking through her mother’s bag now?
• What emotions does the poet put across? How does she show these in the poem?
• What does the phrase ‘crowded with letters’ suggest about the speaker’s mother?
• Why do you think the poet uses enjambment to break up the phrase, ‘carried/ all
through the war’?
• How does the poet convey the way the handbag smells? Why do you think these
smells are important to the speaker?
• How does the poet use the sense of touch?
• Why do you think ‘Letters from my father’ is the only complete phrase written on a
single line?
• The poet repeats the conjunction ‘and’ three times in the final line – what effect
Mark Scheme for Section C-A02
 Writing your unseen poetry response for
section C- A02 [8 marks]
Both poems explore the…….
This is shown through the use of …………in both poems…..
In addition, both poems…..
The use of …. in …… is different to the use of……
However, in ……..

In both ‘Jumper’ and ‘Handbag’ the speakers describe feelings about their
mothers. What are the similarities and/or differences between the ways the
poets present those feelings?