AQA B Pre-Release Poetry

1. AQA B Pre-Release Poetry Revision

2. Women carrying bamboo shrimp pots Walk in a line on the side of the highway, Dressed in brown and black. Their hands, their feet, and their eyes show, But they are brown and black too. The pots on their shoulders are crescent moons pulled from mud, The baskets at their hips are shaved heads that sway as they march. Their shadows spill onto the highway in black puddles. They walk like defeated soldiers, in silence; The pot handles bend down, like empty rifles. Their tom clothes, smelling of dried mud, Are flags from village festivals that have ended. Fish scales cling to their clothes and glitter like medals. They expect no welcome, await no acclamation. Like clouds floating heavy before a storm, The women walk in a line on the side of the highway. Where do they come from and where will they go, Spreading the smell of crabs and snails around them? Nguyen Quang Thieu Translated by Martha Collins On The Highway

4. My personal revenge will be your children's right to schooling and to flowers. My personal revenge will be this song bursting for you with no more fears. My personal revenge will be to make you see the goodness in my people's eyes, implacable in combat always generous and firm in victory. My personal revenge will be to greet you 'Good morning!' in the streets with no beggars, when instead of locking you inside they say, 'Don't look so sad,' When you, the torturer, daren't lift your head. My personal revenge will be to give you these hands you once ill-treated with all their tenderness intact. Luis Enrique Mejia Godoy Translated from the Spanish by Dinah Livingstone Revenge

5. The four knives of Freeman, the cane-cutter, are famous in his village. Man call him Knife-man and praise the marvellous handles and cold, sharp blades. One knife is bone-handled and that red-veined bone was the stamping foot of a black mare once, Pared and shaped and polished with chisel and rough steel file. That knife he has cut a man with who hurt his wife near the water-rock one night. The Four Knives of Freeman the Canecutter

6. The handle of his second famous knife is of hard lime wood seasoned yellow with vinegar. Like a fat stick of old ivory it is and round it fastened three thin bands of green leather. It handles easily, the exquisite balance of it lies deep in his fingers. This is his throwing knife: with it he can split a dog's wagging tail twenty feet away. His third knife is rose-coloured and has small dragons carved in that blood-stone handle. Men admire the golden pebbles of wood laid in the dragons' eye-sockets with infinite, infinite artistry And they admire the curved blade of it, thin as a leaf and glazed with silver. This is the most precious of his famous knives.

8. .A collector offered for it one hundred dollars But Freeman, the cane-cutter, will not sell: he keeps it at his belt, Beautiful to see in its white-skinned sheath of fringed leather. And sometimes villagers watch him peel fruit with it or carve boys' whistles and crucifixes for the Church. But his fourth knife is different: there gathers in it from a long­ remembered history a separate value. From generation to generation the faith of men has entered into the long blade and the shell handle. It is used for only one work; it can have no other; it is a consecrated knife. The knife hangs above his bed at night like a holy cross, holy indeed to him.

9. For when the slaves were freed an old man took it from the saddle­ sheath of his overseer and ran to the saving hills: In his mind the story of its special use began. Dying, he gave it to a son And from this son the famous knife has come through generations to Freeman, still the cane-cutter. What European craftsman toiled to make the knife, its blade rich and edged to cut-bone sharpness, Its palm-worn handle a treasury of sea colours? Now a symbol for a black man, An ancient gesture grown large to hold the meaning of man's humility and a slave's defiance For Freeman uses his fourth famous knife only in the fields, uses it to cut the emerald ancestral cane.

10. A Cowboy’s Version

11. When I'm lopin' across the wide mesa where blossoms send out their perfume, I know that an All-Wise Creator had somethin' to do with each bloom; 'Cuz no mortal hand on this planet could paint us them colors, I know, Nor spangle the coulees and foothills with all the gay posies that grow. When I'm ridin' alone in the night-time way out on the desolate range, With the moon shinin' down through the cloud-hills and the canyons and draws lookin' strange And the shadowy buttes loomin' dimly, way out where the coyotes call, I know that the hand of no human conceived it and fashioned it all.

12. And nights when I lie at the campfire and look at the stars in the sky, I'm ready to own that no human made all of them planets on high; But only the Boss of the Heavens reached down from the Home Ranchabove, And moulded and builded and fashioned the blossoms and ranges I love. I know that the green of the ranges don't come at the biddin' of man; The landscape makes all of them changes because of the Creator's plan. I know that the beauties about me - the sunshine, the blooms and the rest, Wa'n't put there by man nor his helpers, but at the good Lord's own behest.

13. My Village

14. Whenever I come back to my village the village and only the village sits in my mind. On the edge of the wide makana leaf In the tossing of the karmi vines Swaying at the border of the moonlit night In the midst of endless natural beauty. Sitting here on the banks of a canal I sing in the midst of struggle A song of life And weave honeyed dream.

15. My village In the monsoon, drenched; In summer, bathed in the heat of the sun; Huddled up in winter. During the Panchayat elections, Turning over on its side. Squabbling and bickering In harmony and balance, Blossoming and ripening My village. There on the banks of the river Koshi Always before my eyes. Like the golden jasmine of my dreams.

16. The bird of Time flies off • And • What remains in memory • Its colours changing like the sky, • Biting into the makana leaf, • Is the snake, • Slithering among the karmi leaves.

17. Remember • You will be given one poem to write about that you have studied • You will be given one poem you have never seen before • The examiner wants you to talk about: • Themes • Language • Structure

18. Try to use the third person • Don’t start with ‘I am going to compare…..’ • Talk about the themes in one paragraph • The language in another • Structure in another • You should always talk about both poems in each paragraph • And quote to back up your points! • Good Luck!