How do I do unseen poetry in an exam?

Approaching unseen poetry that you haven't been able to revise beforehand can seem daunting, but once you have a certain set of skills you'll be able to apply them to any text you come across! With practice, you can go into your exam or into class with a 'tool kit' to approach these kinds of questions.There are different ways to approach unseen texts (and part of my methodology is to find what works for students individually), but a good place to start is to looks for evidence in the text. Often, students will read an unseen poem and ask 'what does this mean?' - and if it's not immediately obvious then panic mode can set in - I've definitely been there! Instead, we can look at the poem almost like a detective, and highlight or mark up every example of alliteration, assonance, simile, metaphor, meter, form etc., and then put these pieces of evidence together and try to extrapolate the 'meaning'. For example, "the poets frequent use of dashes and exclamation marks, alongside the monosyllabic style of the poem, evoke the panic of the speaker". And whether or not the answer we come up with is what the author intended, you will have demonstrated all the skills that an examiner is looking for, and maybe even have enjoyed the process!