KNOWLEDGE
Some key quotations to memorise from the poetry anthology
For the AQA Love and Relationships poetry anthology, we have chosen around three quotations from each poem which we think are the best to learn. You don’t need to learn the quotations for every poem, but you should try to learn the ones from the poems you intend to use for the second poem in the comparison. Choose at least three poems from each half of the anthology (family love and romantic love) and learn at least these quotations from each one.
‘When We Two Parted’ by Lord Byron
“When we two parted / In silence and tears"
Why memorise this quotation: It sets up the story of the poem, the circular structure (see below) and there is some nice ambiguity in the idea of “silence and tears” (who is silent? who is in tears? what happened?)
“A knell in mine ear”
Why memorise this quotation: One of several examples of language from the semantic field of death (“knell”) which conveys the idea of heartbreak as grief, the death of a relationship, etc.
“How should I greet thee? - / With silence and tears”
Why memorise this quotation: Repetition concludes the circular structure (the inability of the speaker to move on); rhetorical question conveys speaker’s uncertainty — doesn’t know what to think.
‘Love’s Philosophy’ by Percy Shelley
“All things by a law divine / in one another’s being mingle"
Why memorise this quotation: Introduces the religious semantic field — it’s not just nature but God that wants people to be together; mingling idea is light hearted, though — this isn’t a serious poem.
“And the sunlight clasps the earth / And the moonbeams kiss the sea”
Why memorise this quotation: Nice example of natural imagery that pervades the poem — love is natural; also good for personification of nature (very big-R Romantic).
“What are all these kissings worth, / If thou kiss not me?”
Why memorise this quotation: Final rhetorical question conveying speaker’s uncertainty and desire - poem is an argument, it is rhetoric; triviality of “kissings” (this is not a deep poem, it’s about lust).
‘Porphyria’s Lover’ by Robert Browning
“The sullen wind was soon awake / It tore the elm-tops down for spite"
Why memorise this quotation: Sets the mood and tone for the poem through pathetic fallacy; personification of nature reflects the emotions of the speaker and even foreshadows the violence to come in the poem.
“That moment she was mine, mine, fair, / Perfectly pure and good”
Why memorise this quotation: Turning point in the poem (pre-murder); conveys the desire and motive for the crime from the speaker — to possess Porphyria; repetition of “mine”; idealisation of the lover; conflation of both physical beauty (“fair”) and moral goodness (“pure and good”).
“her cheek once more / Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss”
Why memorise this quotation: Captures the behaviour of the speaker after the murder; concisely captures his madness — the belief that she is someone not dead; “my burning kiss” has an oxymoronic quality that neatly brings together both love/lust and violence.
‘Sonnet 29’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“my thoughts do twine and bud / About thee, as wild vines about a tree"
Why memorise this quotation: Establishes the central extended metaphor in the poem and also for analysis of the big idea about thoughts versus reality.
“And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee / Drop heavily down, - burst, shattered, everywhere!”
Why memorise this quotation: The climax of the poem and the metaphor; lots of parts to zoom into like heaviness of the thoughts, the passion implied by the bursting and shattering; aspects of form to look at like the use of caesurae; one of many exclamation marks in the poem that convey the speaker’s general passion.
“And breathe within thy shadow a new air”
Why memorise this quotation: Another nice metaphor that finishes the poem and conveys the speaker’s love for her beloved; the idea of renewal, what his presence would me to her.
‘Neutral Tones’ by Thomas Hardy
“And a few leaves lay on the starving sod; / They had fallen from an ash, and were grey."
Why memorise this quotation: Final part of the heavy pathetic fallacy at the start of the poem; lots to zoom into here too like the idea of falling (like the relationship) the ash linking to a fire that has burnt out, the greyness reflecting the emotionlessness in the relationship and the poem as a whole.
“tedious riddles”
Why this quotation: A nice simile that is easy to remember and analyse, conveying the idea that the addressee of the poem is bored with the speaker, with some ambiguity to dig into around whether she’s figured him out long ago or whether she’s given up figuring him out.
“keen lessons that love deceives, / And wrings with wrong”
Why memorise this quotation: Captures the broader message of the poem about love as a whole; can zoom into the idea that the lessons of love are sharp (“keen”) and painful — love hurts as well as deceiving; also the metaphor of it wringing with wrong — when you wring love out, all that there is wrongness; great for using on Valentines Cards.
‘Letters from Yorkshire’ by Maura Dooley
“my heartful of headlines / feeding words onto a blank screen"
Why memorise this quotation: Captures the urban, cerebral world of the speaker — a contrast to the man in the poem; conveys a sense of regret or sadness — the alliteration of the aspirant ‘h’ sound like a sigh, the metaphor of the blank screen always needing to be fed, always getting hungry again.
“Still it’s you / who sends me word of that other world / pouring air and light into an envelope”
Why memorise this quotation: The idea of connection over distance which is so central to the poem; the enjambment between lines and even stanzas here reflecting that idea of being connected but separate; the imagery of nature that represents the man in the poem; the power of words to connect people (the letter of the title).
“our souls tap out messages across the icy miles”
Why memorise this quotation: Another nice metaphor about connection over distance; the idea of souls being connected, the depth of the relationship between the characters; the circular structure of the icy miles linking back to the opening stanza; the coldness of being apart from a person you love (whether as a friend, a family member or a lover, since this poem is ambiguous in terms of the relationship).
‘The Farmer’s Bride’ by Charlotte Mew
“Like the shut of a winter’s day / Her smile went out"
Why memorise this quotation: Easy to remember with a simile (natural imagery typical of a farmer) and metaphor (the light in her going out) to analyse; captures the bride’s emotional state that lasts for the whole poem — she is very unhappy, and worse.
“Sweet as the first wild violets, she, / To her wild self. But what to me?”
Why memorise this quotation: Conveys the speaker’s feelings for his wife (he is not really a bad person — he does care for her); sibilance to convey his whispered appreciation; nature imagery in the simile; idea of wildness; rhetorical question shows the speaker’s confusion — he just doesn’t understand what’s going on.
“Oh! My God! the down, / The soft young down of her, the brown, / The brown of her — her eyes, her hair, her hair!”
Why memorise this quotation: Climax of the poem; all the punctuation to convey the breakdown and the emotion; the weird, poetic but unintelligible diction conveying his total confusion; the return of animal (down) and colour (brown) imagery from earlier in the poem; the lust; the ambiguity of the ending.
‘Walking Away’ by Cecil Day-Lewis
“like a satellite / wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away"
Why memorise this quotation: Nice easy simile to analyse to convey the speaker’s feelings at the start of the poem; the idea of the satellite with the parent at the centre — the son revolving round his father; the forced and painful implication of “wrenched”; the fear implied by “drifting”.
“pathos of a half-fledged thing set free / Into a wilderness”
Why memorise this quotation: Another nice metaphor, this time of a bird, to convey how the speaker sees his child, with links to the nest and the danger that birds face when they first have to try to fly; the enjambment capturing the ambivalence of the speaker — the son is “free” (good) but he is now in “a wilderness” (dangerous, scary).
“Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem”
Why memorise this quotation: A complementary simile to go with the first one; the same sort of idea is conveyed but the tone is very different: now the imagery is natural rather than artificial, and “loosened” is gentle (compared with “wrenched”); plus seeds fall and grow — this is a good thing, the only way new life can be created; the speaker is coming to terms with the separation now.
‘Eden Rock’ by Charles Causley
“Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light"
Why memorise this quotation: Captures the speaker’s quiet admiration for his parents (in this case his mother); the diction is more poetic here than earlier in the poem, presenting the mother as quietly beautiful, almost angelic; half-rhyme at the end (consistent all the way through) conveys the idea that something is not quite right for the speaker (without his parents).
“The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.”
Why memorise this quotation: First really clear indication that the place beyond Eden Rock is the after life; one of several sets of three’s in the poem reflecting both the holy trinity (in a Christian sense) but also, more importantly, the family (mother, father, son); the white light of purity, peace, etc (links back to the cloth and other things in the poem).
“I had not thought that it would be like this.”
Why memorise this quotation: Final line captures the overall meaning — something is not quite right; ambiguous in terms of what “it” means, making it good for analysis of different interpretations; simple language (monosyllables) reflect the simplicity of the speaker and the ordinariness of this experience; line is separated from the rest of the stanza, the speaker is separated from his parents.
‘Follower’ by Seamus Heaney
“His shoulders globed like a full sail"
Why memorise this quotation: Captures the speaker’s childhood admiration for his father; one of several pieces of nautical imagery comparing ploughing through mud to sailing through water to present father as strong and skilled, as a man of action; possible allusion to the Titan Atlas through the globe metaphor.
“I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake”
Why memorise this quotation: Captures the shift from the focus on the father to the focus on the speaker as a child, with his feeling of inferiority; use of “stumble” verb which is repeated in final stanza in relation to his father; more nautical imagery through “wake”.
“I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, / Yapping always.”
Why memorise this quotation: Concluding image of the speaker as a child with the triad of present participles which convey his sense of himself as clumsy and verbal compare to the father as coordinated but taciturn (the strong silent type).
‘Mother, any distance’ by Simon Armitage
“You at the zero-end, me with a spool of tape, recording / length, reporting metres, centimetres back to base"
Why memorise this quotation: Establishes the central image that recurs in the poem of two people connected by some kind of thread (in this case the tape measure) which we could also link to the idea of the umbilical cord; the idea of the mother as being there with him from the very start of life(the “zero-end”, the “base”); the idea that children go out into the world and then return and report back to their parents (How was your day?); the metrical measurements (compared to the imperial ones for the mother) — see below.
“Anchor. Kite.”
Why memorise this quotation: It’s easy to learn (you know it already); there are two metaphors here which both convey the ambivalence in the relationship, the central connectedness and dependency of the both mother and child, with the desire to be free; it’s easy to analyse too.
“your fingertips still pinch / the last one-hundredth of an inch”
Why memorise this quotation: Gives us a slightly clearer sense of the mother’s feelings (since we don’t hear her voice); “pinch” conveys a sense of desperation, a desire to cling on no matter what; use of imperial measurements always for the mother — she’s from a different time to the speaker (who is always metric).
“to fall or fly”
Why memorise this quotation: It’s easy to learn; the alliterate binary opposites make for nice terminology; summarises the overall message of the poem about growing up and its dangers (fall) and exciting possibilities (fly).
‘Before You Were Mine’ by Carol Ann Duffy
“Marilyn.”
Why memorise this quotation: It’s incredibly easy to learn; it captures both the glamour and allure of the young mother, but also the sense that this person is doomed to die young (not the mother herself, but the version of the mother that is introduced at the start of the poem).
“the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows / the right walk home could bring”
Why this quotation: It’s absolutely full of meaning that you can analyse in lots of detail; the youthful glamour of the ballroom, the idea of all the eyes being on the mother, the romance and glamour of the future in the “fizzy, movie tomorrows”, the idea that youth won’t last, like the fizz; the idea that so much of our hope when we are young is tied to romance (“the right walk home”) but that the demise of our young selves is made inevitable by this — with romantic love comes children (most of the time).
“the decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh?”
Why this quotation: Concisely captures the core meaning of the poem — the speaker’s belief that her mother’s life was better before she was born; rhetorical question shows some doubt, though; colloquial language to show closeness of relationship.
“those high-heeled red shoes, relics”
Why this quotation: Another lovely symbolic item, with that metaphorical use of “relics” to convey the sense of something ancient but also significant — it is gone but it mattered; the image of the child with her hands in the shoes — the way young children idolise and long to be their parents.
‘Winter Swans’ by Owen Sheers
“the waterlogged earth / gulping for breath at our feet”
Why this quotation: The symbolic rain that has lasted for two days and which represents the argument that the couple have had; they cannot escape it — they are walking on the memories of it; the personified earth, desperate to move on but it’s a struggle.
“icebergs of white feather, paused before returning again / like boats righting in rough weather”
Why this quotation: The turning point in the poem and a good reference to the titular swans; the central image of redemption, of things becoming right after going wrong; the ominous “iceberg” image combined with the simile of “boats” — all is not well in this relationship, the future may not be bright, even with this reconciliation.
“like a pair of wings settling after flight”
Why this quotation: The final image and simile in the poem; this is very rich in terms of what it might mean, with the way a swan’s wings totally transform the look of the bird — the wings almost disappear into the body of the swan — it becomes whole again, one thing again, but the wings are still there…; the lack of a rhyme in the final couplet and what this might foreshadow for the future of the relationship.
‘Singh Song!’ by Daljit Nagra
“my bride / tiny eyes ov a gun / and di tummy of a teddy”
Why this quotation: Captures the speaker’s pride through the repetition of “my bride”; it also captures the bride’s unconventional beauty in the imagery in the two similes (gun and teddy), both of which are deliberately unconventional; both similes allow for multiple interpretations in the analysis.
“Late in di midnight hour … vee cum down whispering stairs”
Why this quotation: This is the transition moment in the final part of the poem where it becomes less comic and more romantic and poetic; contrasts with the rest of the poem as it is after hours, after the shop has finally shut — no more sneaking around; personification of stairs, as if this is a secretive and magical moment.
“Is priceless baby —”
Why this quotation: Final line of the poem; captures the core distinction between the importance of work (and money) versus the importance of love.
‘Climbing My Grandfather’ by Andrew Waterhouse
“glassy ridge of a scar, place my feet / gently in the old stitches and move on.”
Why this quotation: Includes the mountaineering metaphor; introduces idea of grandfather as slightly damaged — perhaps physically (an old war wound?) or maybe just psychologically, emotionally; shows the speaker’s care with this (“gently”) and the idea he doesn’t get put off, waylaid by it, he just “move[s] on”.
“still firm shoulder”
Why this quotation: Conveys the strength of the grandfather, perhaps physically, perhaps emotionally; he is not a frail, doddery old man, nor a sweet granny-style character; he’s hardy and imposing, which makes his warmth and his “good heart” (see below) that much more interesting and noteworthy.
“gasping for breath I can only lie / watching the clouds and birds circle, feeling his heat, knowing / the slow pulse of his good heart.”
Why this quotation: End of the poem, end of the metaphor, end of the speaker’s journey into understanding his grandfather; conveys the goodness of the grandfather but also the speaker’s exhausting — understanding people is hard work.