Year 11 unseen poetry practice

Poem A: Born Yesterday by Philip Larkin

For Sally Amis

Tightly-folded bud,

I have wished you something

None of the others would:

Not the usual stuff

About being beautiful,

Or running off a spring

Of innocence and love

They will all wish you that,

And should it prove possible,

Well, youre a lucky girl.

But if it shouldnt, then

May you be ordinary;

Have, like other women,

An average of talents:

Not ugly, not good-looking,

Nothing uncustomary

To pull you off your balance,

That, unworkable itself,

Stops all the rest from working.

In fact, may you be dull

If that is what a skilled,

Vigilant, flexible,

Unemphasised, enthralled

Catching of happiness is called.

Poem B: You Being Born by Brian Jones

I saw you born.

It was remarkable.

You shot out from between your mothers legs

like a rugby ball from a scrum

and the stocky Geordie midwife caught you neatly

and cried Whoops! Shes come!

You had a wrinkled jammy head

and spasmy legs like a portly frogs.

From your belly button a white root waved

that had fed you all the months youd grown

and ripened in your mothers womb.

And let me tell you Im ashamed

I forgot your mother completely she had been

those things to me that one day youll discover

in someone else, and think God, this is it!

My sweetheart, my warm dear, my red hot lover

But for those moments, as the doctor

shoved cotton wool up your flat nose

and swabbed your eyes and cleaned your bum

I forgot completely all my life and love

Q1: In Poem A, Born Yesterday how has the poet used language to convey a feeling of love and happiness?

STEP 1: Have some ideas about poem 1 spend 10 minutes reading and making notes

What is the poem about? Whose voice do we hear?

What mood or tone is there? Highlight any emotions and how

these are expressed.

What is message of the poem? What is the poet trying to say?

STEP 2: Spend 20 minutes writing up your ideas

At the start of the poem, the speaker

The writer uses [T] to convey

An example of this is "........"

In Born Yesterday the poet shows

As the poem progresses, the speaker portrays

The poet could be suggesting

This implies

Literally... metaphorically... symbolically...

This makes the reader feel

The reader is told

Q2: Compare how the writers of Born Yesterday and You Being Born convey their feelings on a child being born.

REMEMBER! Youre only looking for links, nothing else.

STEP 1: Have some ideas about poem 2 spend 5 minutes reading and making notes. Use the prompts from Q1 to help.

STEP 2: Spend 10 minutes writing up your ideas

In both poems the writers feel although

In poem 1, the writer uses [T] to convey

Similarly, in poem 2, the writer uses [T]

An example of this is "........"

In You Being Born the poet shows whereas in Born Yesterday the speaker suggests

Both poems include Likewise In contrast

This implies

Literally... metaphorically... symbolically...

This makes the reader feel

The reader is told