Poems of the decade Flashcards
(20 cards)
Summary of ‘Eat Me’ by Patience Agbabi
Explores an unhealthy relationship that is centered around lust, food and control.
The man thinks only of his own pleasure, completely disregarding how his partner’s life might be in endangered.
After gaining massive amounts of weight the speaker finally turns on her partner and smothers him to death.
Summary of ‘Chainsaw Versus Pampas Grass’ by Simon Armitage
Explores a chainsaw’s destruction of pampas grass.
Conflict between humans and nature.
Or, conflict between men and women (relationship dynamics).
Summary of ‘Material’ by Ros Barber
The poem takes the reader through the speaker’s youth and delves into her mother’s love of handkerchiefs.
The speaker found the mother’s handkerchief’s unfashionable when they were younger but has now grown nostalgic for the simpler, personal world of the hankies.
Summary of ‘History’ by John Burnside
It was written in response to the 9/11 attacks.
The poem contrasts the innocence of a child playing by the sea with the poet’s deep anxiety about the world’s instability.
The speaker tries to ground himself in the surrounding present and the value of nature + the loving world.
Summary of ‘An Easy Passage’ by Julia Copus
Delves into the transition from adolescence to adulthood, encapsulating the delicate moment of a young girl climbing back into her house.
The poem shifts to a broader perspective of a secretary observing the girl from over the street.
Contrast between adult responsibilities and childhood freedom.
Summary of ‘The Deliverer’ by Tishani Doshi
Summary of ‘The Lammas Hireling’ by Ian Duhig
An unnamed farmer hires out a hireling as he is cheap and works well.
The hireling ends up being a warlock.
The farmer shoots him at night, puts him in a sack and throws him in the river.
The farmer is left confessing to a priest.
Summary of ‘To My Nine Year Old Self’ by Helen Dunmore
A poignant reflection on the passage of time and the evolving relationship between childhood and adulthood.
The speaker talks to her younger self, wanting to apologize.
The speaker reminisces over her life as a child.
The speaker realizes her younger self would not want to listen to her so she lets go of these memories.
Summary of ‘A Minor Role’ by U.A Fanthorpe.
The speaker reflects on the role they have to play in society due to their illness.
There is a fine line between the life the poet wants and the life she has.
The speaker is lonely and grapples with the monotony of her life.
Summary of ‘The Gun’ by Vicki Feaver
Opposition between a house and kitchen with its associations of home, warmth and security, and a gun with its association of violence and death.
Creates an uncomfortable, disturbing poem about killing and the grim pleasure it engenders.
Summary of ‘The Furthest Distance I’ve Travelled’ by Leontia Flynn
The speaker is initially full of confidence and excitement.
Towards the end of the poem the pace slows to a more meditative mood.
The speaker has matured and she accepts that it is the people she met rather than the places she visited that give her travels their significance.
Summary of ‘Giuseppe’ by Roderick Ford
Explores the grim tale of a mermaid’s murder in WWII Sicily.
Highlighting the dark side of human survival instincts.
Summary of ‘Out of the Bag’ by Seamus Heaney
A poem that speaks on the pains and joys of birth, life, sickness, and death.
The poem implicitly compares the young Heaney’s innocent beliefs about childbirth with scenes of the adult Heaney’s visits to sites of healing in both Greek myth and Catholic tradition.
Summary of ‘Effects’ by Alan Jenkins
Explores the relationship between a middle class son with his working class mother.
He reflects on how class created a divide between him and his mother.
He holds her hand and reminisces on her memories.
Summary of ‘Genetics’ by Sinead Morrissey
Speaker notes how inherited traits connect people to their past.
Speaker notes that their hands contain features inherited from both their mother and father.
This links the now separated couple.
Summary of ‘From the Journal of a Disappointed Man’ by Andrew Motion
Describes the actions of construction workers who labor to build a pier - the narrator watches the men and studies them.
He admits his fascination with their actions and minds and eventually comes to different conclusions about their inner lives and the dynamic between them and the rest of the world.
Summary of ‘Please Hold’ by Ciaran O’Driscoll
A satirical poem about an automated phone call where the speaker attempts to pay a phone bill.
This evokes the agonizing reality of modern technology systems which disconnects people from one another.
Although we are technologically developing, we are declining in morality a the same time.
Summary of ‘Look We Have Coming to Dover’ by Daljit Nagara
Summary of ‘On Her Blindness’ by Adam Thorpe
Describes a mother’s life, her struggle with blindness, her death, and the family’s inability to understand what she went through.
The poet describes the mother’s frustration with her disability.
Summary of ‘Ode On a Grayson Perry Urn’ by Tim Turnbull
An in-depth description of the emotions a viewer feels upon seeing one of Perry’s ceramic works.
The poem itself parodies Keats’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ and there are references to the Keats piece throughout.
