Poetry Live

Poetry Live Reviews.
On 28^th February, 70 Year 11 students travelled to Oxford for the annual Poetry Live event.  The website is delighted that two students have reviewed the event for us because it gives us all a flavour of what they experienced.

“At Poetry Live we were able to experience readings from many well-known poets, all of which feature in our GCSE poetry syllabus, for us: Carol Anne-Duffy, Owen Sheers, Simon Armitage and Daljit Nagra. Their live recitations helped us to understand the roots of their poem structures and the contextual reasoning of the poet’s thought process. I particularly benefited from our studied poems being read but also the other poets’ work which enabled us to gather a greater sense of theme throughout their work and a generalised sense of interest and continuity in their subject matter.”

Charlotte H

 “The Poetry Live trip was a great experience to be able to have as GCSE Literature students. As well as the poets, we were spoken to by the chief AQA Examiner for this section of the course. Whilst talking through a few examples of unseen poetry questions, he gave us some valuable tips on how to manage our time and plan our answers effectively to achieve the highest marks possible, although there was an audible gasp from the audience when he declared one piece of work ‘If I were feeling mean, I’d give that a zero!’

Following this, there were multiple poets who spoke to us, including four from our GCSE anthology. They all gave us a reading of some of their poems, as well as diving deeper into the meanings and context behind the poems we study for our GCSEs. In addition to this, we were able to take lots of notes on some of the key points given by the poets. By having this brilliant advantage of hearing the poems from the poets themselves, we were given the opportunity to acknowledge how they are meant to be heard. This helped to highlight the different structural and linguistic techniques used, meaning we furthered our understanding of these specific poems and can now use this new knowledge to develop our answers even more when we sit the exam in May.

It was a fun trip that was definitely worth attending, so thank you Mrs Sadd and Mrs Legerton for organising it!”

Rebecca T

Thank you so much for these reviews and to the staff who organised this important opportunity to see and hear poets read and talk about their poems.

Simon Armitage                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Carolann Duffy