How to Answer the Unseen Poetry Question (AQA GCSE English Literature): Exam Questions

The night tinkles like ice in glasses. 

Leaves are glued to the pavement with frost. 

The brown air fumes at the shop windows, 

Tries the doors, and sidles past.

I gulp down winter raw. 

The heady Darkness swirls with tenements*. 

In a brown fuzz of cottonwool 

Lamps fade up crags, die into pits

Frost in my lungs is harsh as leaves 

Scraped up on paths. – I look up, there, 

A high roof sails, at the mast-head 

Fluttering a grey and ragged star.

The world’s a bear shrugged in his den. 

It’s snug and close in the snoring night. 

And outside like chrysanthemums* 

The fog unfolds its bitter scent.

*tenements: blocks of flats 

*chrysanthemums: a type of flower

Norman MacCaig

A man crosses the street in rain, 

stepping gently, looking two times north and south, 

because his son is asleep on his shoulder. 

No car must splash him. 

No car drive too near to his shadow. 

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo 

but he’s not marked. 

Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE, 

HANDLE WITH CARE. 

His ear fills up with breathing. 

He hears the hum of a boy’s dream 

deep inside him. 

We’re not going to be able 

to live in this world 

if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing 

with one another. 

The road will only be wide. 

The rain will never stop falling.

 Naomi Shihab Nye

I go to the mountain side 

of the house to cut saplings*, 

and clear a view to snow 

on the mountain. But when I look up, 

saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in 

the uppermost branches. 

I don’t cut that one. 

I don’t cut the others either. 

Suddenly, in every tree, 

an unseen nest 

where a mountain 

would be. 

*saplings: young trees

Tess Gallagher

On the outside 

he seemed older than he was. 

His face was like a weather map 

full of bad weather 

while inside 

his heart was fat with sun.

With his two dogs 

he cleared a thin silver path 

across the Black Mountain. 

And when winter 

kicked in

they brought his sheep 

down from the top 

like sulky clouds.

Harry didn’t care for things 

that other people prize 

like money, houses, bank accounts 

and lies. 

He was living in a caravan 

until the day he died.

But at his funeral 

his friends’ tears 

fell like a thousand 

Diamonds.

Lindsay Macrae

If you can’t bring yourself to build 

a snowman or even to clench 

a snowball or two to fling 

at the pine tree trunk, at least 

find some reason to take you out 

of yourself: scrape a patch of grass clear 

for the birds maybe; prod at your shrubs 

so they shake off the weight, straighten up; 

or just stump about leaving prints 

of your boots, your breath steaming out.

Promise. Don’t let yourself in 

for this moment again: the end 

of the afternoon, drawing the curtains

on the glare of the garden, a whole 

day of snow nobody’s trodden. 

Michael Laskey

In both ‘Nobody’ and ‘The Richest Poor Man in the Valley’ the poets describe ideas about how to live your life.

What are the similarities and/or differences between the methods the poets use to present these ideas?

[8 marks]

Autumn arrives

Like an experienced robber

Grabbing the green stuff

Then cunningly covering his tracks

With a deep multitude

Of colourful distractions.

And the wind,

The wind is his accomplice

Putting an air of chaos

Into the careful diversions

So branches shake

And dead leaves are suddenly blown

In the faces of inquisitive strangers.

The theft chills the world,

Changes the temper of the earth

Till the normally placid sky

Glows red with a quiet rage. 

Alan Bold

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze


that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house


and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,

indeed, rip the little door from its jamb*,


a day when the cool brick paths

and the garden bursting with peonies** 


seemed so etched in sunlight

that you felt like taking


a hammer to the glass paperweight

on the living room end table,


releasing the inhabitants

from their snow-covered cottage


so they could walk out,

holding hands and squinting


into this larger dome of blue and white,

well, today is just that kind of day. 

Billy Collins 

* jamb – the sides of a doorway or opening 

** peonies – flowers

When you see me sitting quietly,

Like a sack left on the shelf,

Don’t think I need your chattering.

I’m listening to myself.

Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!

Hold! Stop your sympathy!

Understanding if you got it,

Otherwise I’ll do without it!

When my bones are stiff and aching,

And my feet won’t climb the stair,

I will only ask one favor:

Don’t bring me no rocking chair.

When you see me walking, stumbling,

Don’t study and get it wrong.

‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy

And every goodbye ain’t gone.

I’m the same person I was back then,

A little less hair, a little less chin,

A lot less lungs and much less wind.

But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in. 

Maya Angelou

I used to wash my grandmother’s hair,

When she was old and small

And walked with a frame

Like a learning child.

She would turn off her hearing aid

And bend into the water,

Holding the edge of the sink with long fingers;

I would pour warm cupfuls over her skull

And wonder what it could be like

In her deaf head with eighty years of life.

Hers was the softest hair I ever felt,

Wedding dress silk on a widow;

But there is a photo of her

Sitting swathed in hair

That I imagine chestnut from the black and white,

Long enough to sit on.

Her wet head felt delicate as a birdskull

Worn thin by waves of age,

As she stood bent.

My mother’s mother under my hands.

Judy Williams 

On the estate,
the world shrinks to
the square of concrete
between lamppost and underground car park.

This is the pitch,
the parliament,
the supreme court
where trainers scuff stories
into the ground.

A stick becomes a sword,
a lid a shield,
and somewhere a mum
calls from a second-floor balcony,
breaking the illusion.

Our kingdom
held by shoelace knots
and forever alliances,
untouched by worries of the adult world.

The sky knows
we are kings here.

And the wind carries
our laughter
like flags.

By Amir Muhammed

When I was twelve
(and a half,
which mattered)
I knew everything.

Like:
how many steps from the gate
to the corner shop.
(47.)

How to swap a football sticker
without losing face.
(The trick
is pretending
you don’t care.)

How to dodge
Mrs Perkins’ questions
about homework:
Shrug. Smile. Run.

I didn’t know
about variable rate mortgages.
Or heartbreak.
Or that Mr Jenkins
from number 12
wouldn’t always
be there
to nod
good morning.

But at twelve
(and a half)
I knew enough.

By Anna McPartlin

My mother is a low-pressure front
that rolls in around teatime,
bringing with her the smell of wet laundry and disappointment.

She has two settings:
encouraging me to pursue my dreams
and reminding me to take the chicken out of the freezer.
Neither of which I ever do.

When I was seven,
she told me my teeth were charmingly crooked.
At seventeen,
she offered me braces for Christmas.

We communicate best
in passive-aggressive WhatsApp messages
about which one of us forgot to buy bread.

And yet,
on stormy nights,
when the walls feel thin as paper,
her voice is the sound of a kettle boiling
in a house that has never run out of tea.

By Paloma Guzman

Mum says I was born
In the middle of a good cup of tea.

Dad had made it.
(One sugar, splash of milk.)
Mum never got to drink it.

She says this whenever I’m cheeky.
As if to remind me
I owe her a brew.

We still sit side by side,
She with her cuppa,
Me with my phone.
(Scrolling.
Always scrolling.)

But when she laughs,
It’s the same sound as the teaspoon
Clinking against the mug.

And suddenly I am four again,
Offering biscuits with sticky fingers.

She takes one.
No thanks needed.
That’s what mums do.

By Barry Hartley

This city is not polite.
It coughs its diesel breath
into the cold morning.
Sirens shriek and the city snarls beneath my feet,
like the rumbling of a threatening subterranean soundtrack.

Pavements sweat
with last night’s rain,
oily puddles reflecting
the distorted fried chicken glow
of late shops.
Graffiti scars
blur into the brickwork,
old wounds, reopened.

But the city is ours.
Every cracked pavement
knows my name,
every billboard nods
when I pass.

A corner shop window
becomes a mirror,
offering back
my face,
blurred but shining.

The city moves
like inspiration in my chest,
like a poem
half-sung,
half-built.

By Tayo Anichebe

I am growing
in dis city
like a vine
finding cracks
in concrete skin.

Dis city
huff and puff
with smoke
and siren heartbeats
but still
I stretch
green fingers
up lamp-post
up brick wall.

Bus pass my face
dust kiss my leaves
but I hold
my root
my rhythm.

City can’t
suffocate
what grow
from seed.

By Chevelle Brown

The trees couldn’t care less
about your existential crisis.

They’re busy
manufacturing oxygen
like intertwining green sweatshops,
waving their leaves in slow-motion applause
for the sun.

Meanwhile,
you’re crying in a Lidl car park
because you sent a risky text
and got left on read.

The birds are singing,
not for you,
but because they have biological imperatives
and very little self-awareness.

Nature doesn’t need your
poetic metaphors.

The daffodils don’t dream
of being symbols
of renewal or rebirth.
They just want water.

And maybe,
that’s what makes them perfect.

By Ruby O’Neill

The river remembers me.

Not by name,
but by touch.
The way I used to skip stones
and watch them vanish
like soft-spoken promises.

The river
never asked
where I came from.

It knew.

Not from the place
on my birth certificate,
but from the way
I listened
to its voice.

The river
reminds me
I am water too.

Moving.
Shaping.
Becoming.

By Narindra Persaud

Look in mirror
see my face
but also see
grandmother cheekbones
mother's strong brow
father's proud mouth.

I am
piece of many
carved by island wind
polished by city rain.

Sometimes
feel like patchwork quilt
stitched by two worlds.

But my song
sing soft
from inside.

Not here
not there
but all of me
at once.

By Khadeesha Williams

My name
is not a label.

It is a story
folded into a word.

Given
before I understood
its weight,
its wings.

For years
they tried to rename me.
Tried to reframe me
in boxes
that did not fit.

But my name
is older
than their paperwork.

It echoes
in every breath I take.

Today,
I carry my name
not as a burden
but as a banner.

It is mine.
And it sings.

By Faduma Ali