Hello everybody and welcome to another video in this series on what to do in the first
five minutes with an English Literature anthology poetry question.
Let’s imagine your named poem is ‘Kamikaze’, and this is the question:
Compare how poets present ideas about power in ‘Kamikaze’ and one other poem.
So the first thing to do is re-read or scan through the named poem, pen in hand, and to
annotate anything you can think of that might be relevant to this question.
So for ‘Kamikaze’, we might pick out:
The symbolism of ‘sunrise’ in the opening line.
Sunrise is an image we can of course link to the power of nature, but it's also a link
to Japan which is known as the Land of the Rising Sun.
A Rising Sun flag is used primarily by the military forces of Japan.
So, in this one image of sunrise we see the struggle between the power of nature and the
power of humanity.
We might also pick out the quotation from the quotations rap: ‘a tuna, the dark prince,
muscular’.
The regal imagery of the metaphor ‘prince’ has connotations of nobility and majesty,
emphasising the power of nature.
Garland’s use of structure also seems significant in exploring the theme of power.
On the one hand the poem has a very tight structure - all of the stanzas are made up
of six lines, and this tight structure can be seen to reflect the tight control and power
of the military, and the human expectation of what the pilot should do – not just from
the military leaders, but the family and neighbours who will go on to reject him.
But to contrast this tight control, the poem is written in free verse and contains numerous
examples of enjambment.
Free verse is poetry that does not rhyme, but follows the rhythms of everyday speech.
Enjambment is where sentences flow onto separate lines, and even separate stanzas.
And we see both in 'Kamikaze'.
The free verse and enjambment contrast the tight control we see in the length of the
stanzas and this freedom of expression reflects the freedom the pilot wants to have after
considering the power of nature - the tension between human power (the military, family
and neighbours) is contrasted with the power of nature through Garland’s use of structure.
So that re-reading of the named poem will give me my concept:
‘Kamikaze’ explores how the power of nature can challenge people’s misguided notions
about the power of humanity.
Now with THAT in mind, I will then flick back to the list of poem titles which is provided
in the question paper, and think through each title one by one, considering which poem to
compare with that line of argument.
And let me just point out.
It’s not that I will now think ‘OK is there another poem that uses regal imagery,
free verse and symbolism?’
No, what I want to do is think about my second poem in terms of the idea – that humanity
is not powerful, but nature is.
The June 2019 exam report pointed out that: ‘students who led their analysis through
ideas in the poem, rather than methods, tended to do much better.’
So that’s why I want to follow this approach.
So go through the list and think which compares well.
And I think my best bet will be ‘Extract from, The Prelude’, a poem where the speaker
initially thinks they are powerful, describing their little boat as an ‘elfin pinnace’.
A pinnace is a light sailing ship.
The adjective 'elfin' imbues a sense of magic to the scene - the whole thing has taken on
the mythical nature reflecting how the proud speaker thinks they are powerful.
But all of this falls away when the speaker sees the mountain, realising their own weakness
and the power of nature.
They describe it as (and this again is from the power and conflict poetry rap): ‘a huge
peak, black and huge’.
The ambitious vocabulary of ‘elfin pinnace’ is gone, as the speaker’s wide vocabulary
has eluded them to the point of repetition with the word ‘huge’.
Now obviously I won’t have ‘Extract from, The Prelude’ in front of me, so I’m going
to need to remember quotations and references, but this now is my concept:
Both ‘Kamikaze’ and ‘Extract from, The Prelude’ explore how the power of nature
can challenge people’s misguided notions about the power of humanity.
This is a two part line of argument.
And I’m going to perhaps spend the first half of my answer looking at the supposed
power of humanity, and the second half looking at how the power of nature challenges that
misguided idea.
Everything in my answer then becomes part of the theory I am exploring.
Now of course, I’m not saying this is how you would HAVE to do it if a question came
up about ‘Kamikaze’ and ideas about power.
All I’m trying to do is show you the sort of process you might go through for that first
five minutes.
If you have a different idea, put it in the comments section.
And just to finish: what if this was the named poem, but the question was about conflict,
not power.
Well in that case, you might be able to write a similar answer about the inner conflict
experienced when the pilot and the boat thief encounter the power of nature.
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