How do I go about planning an 'unseen poetry' question?

First off, you are going to want to thoroughly read through and annotate the poem. Read the poem carefully at least twice through to make sure you can understand each line's literal meaning. Once you are happy with this, jot down some ideas about some deeper or metaphorical meanings and themes at play. Use the question to help you with this. For example, if the question is asking about the speaker's "feelings about her daughter" (AQA 2014 Paper), think about what those feelings might be. Next, you want to hunt for evidence. I find this checklist really useful whenever approaching an unseen poem: what language techniques does the poet use (e.g. alliteration, personification)? What is the rhyme scheme? What is the rhythm? What is the structure (e.g. two stanzas)? What is the form (e.g. Petrarchan sonnet)? Go through the poem circling, highlighting or underlining evidence for each of these key questions. Now you've got a toolkit of evidence, you can start to briefly plan your answer. First tackle the question. Remember: A* answers will have a clear "response to the text" (Examiner report 2016), so summarise your initial thoughts on the themes at work into one phrase such as "the speaker's feelings of anxiety towards her daughter". There are many ways to structure an unseen poem response but for the 24 mark questions in the AQA paper, three paragraphs on language, form (including rhyme and rhythm) and structure are a good template to follow. Arrange your evidence into these three categories, maybe use three different colours to make things easier. Now, you're ready to write your response! Planning can be the hardest part, and practice makes perfect. Once you've mastered this technique, the writing will be easy!