How do I choose a comparison poem for poetry closed reading? (AQA English Literature 2 - Part B)

For this question you will have to choose one poem from the anthology you have studied, which you will not have access to in the exam. There are 15 poems in each anthology and you will be expected to know all 15, as well as quotations and the context the poem was written in. It’s a big ask, but if you’ve taken the time to become familiar with your anthology, selecting the best comparison poem for the question will become much easier. There are 45 minutes allocated to this question and taking a few minutes at the beginning to plan and choose the comparison poem will be very effective. To best answer the question, having three strong points of balanced comparison gives plenty to write about without an information overload, as well as giving structure to your answer. In the exam, read the whole question and pick out the key part. For example, ‘present ideas about power’. Read the poem with ‘ideas about power’ in mind. In this read-though you’ll be looking out for where the language, structure and form ‘present’ the theme. It will be useful to highlight these points on the poem itself (like you did with your teacher in class) and begin your plan by setting these out before answering the question. You can choose a table, a mind map or a thought process of your choice. Label this as your plan and draw a line under it before answering the question. Then you need to turn to the anthology list to choose your comparison poem. If you know your anthology list well, you will be able to quickly dismiss poems that don’t match in theme or topic. Two or three poems might jump out as possibilities, so the next stage is looking for a poem that uses parallel methods for expressing power in an interesting way. For example, if you selected that the form of the poem (the physical structure of the poem) says something specific about power, think about other poems that also have an interesting form. What do those say about your theme? They do not have to say the same thing, this is the beauty of the question. One could be a sonnet (14 lines with a set rhyme scheme) and one could be written in quatrains (groups of four lines) and can both be exercising an idea on power. This is where the comparison comes in and through it you are beginning to answer the question. Remember, your answer must be balanced between the two poems. You need to be able write a constructive comparison across all the points you’re making. Where you have set out the three points you are going to use from the set poem, write across from each point the comparison you can make to the poem you have selected. Once you have three strong comparisons between the set poem and one poem you have selected, you are ready to write your answer.