What should I be looking for with an unseen poem?

Unseen poetry can sound like an impossible task, especially when you have experienced the intense level of study and learning time that goes into learning your prepared anthology poems. Just remember that it doesn't matter if you don't get the 'correct' meaning of the poem - this is somewhat impossible as poetry is subjective and examiners understand that words can mean different things to different people. Just remember to justify any points with decent evidence and explanation. 1. Know how much time you have to respond to the question but DO NOT just rush into it. Remember you have never seen this poem before and are therefore not going to have any ideas at first. You must read the poem several times and after about 2 reads, start to annotate and plan. 2. Titles are there for a reason so try and think about why a poet has called their poem a certain name and whether this has any deeper meaning. 3. Obviously words and imagery is the easy place to start to try and understand what is happening in the poem, you need this to be able to read deeper into the poem. 4. Then think about voice and who the poem is addressed to - does this have any significance? does it make the reader feel anything? 5. Try and spot key techniques like metaphor and simile and whether this adds anything to the tone of the poem. A tip here is to consider why the poet even wrote the poem and this may hint at why they used some of the techniques. 6. The structure is very important to a poem so don't forget to think about this with the unseen. How does the narrative move throughout the poem - is there an obvious beginning, middle and end or not? Are there any pauses or rhyme? 7. I would suggest dedicating an entire point to the final stanza of a poem/ending, this is often where the key message comes across and often essays reading quite nicely if you talk about the ending of a poem at the end of your essay