How do I remember all the poems from the poetry anthology?

The poetry anthologies are daunting documents. Take for example AQA's 15 poems of power and conflict, how can anyone possibly learn all them? The answer is you don't have to. Whilst they are all very good poems that I thoroughly recommend you become acquainted with, you certainly don't need to be able to recite the prelude and know that a semi-colon proceeds the phrase "elfin pinnace". In fact you don't even need to know what an "elfin pinnace" is (it's a basically a fairy boat). Instead of learning all the poems from the anthology your teacher already should have broken them down for you. However, with tactical selection you can learn only the most pertinent quotations from the poems. For instance for Blake's London you may only decide to learn "I wander through each chartered street/ Near where the chartered Thames does flow", "And the hapless Soldiers sigh/ Runs in blood down Palace walls" and "mind-forged manacles". This would still give you a basis to form a concise and well informed comparison to how power is dealt with by Blake and would give you room for many comparisons. se quotes alone present notions, of the inability for people to think outside of the regime which they are under, the irony of the abused protecting the abusers, the ability for government to control every aspect of life and even map the river. Three quotes from 6 or 7 poems suddenly isn't so bad. Especially when there are strategies which you can use to learn them. I personally recommend memrise which is used in many schools to learn languages. With a clever use of making your own quiz, you can use memrise to test your knowledge. In order to make it work you have to match the quotation to the point you will make which will make it even easier to answer questions in the exams, because you'll already know what answer the quotation will give.

Answered by Sam W. English tutor

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