How do I approach unseen poetry during an exam?

When you’re facing an unseen poem in an exam, the idea of reading, understanding and analysing it in such a short period of time can seem daunting. Before you even read the poem, it is useful to highlight the key terms in the question. The question will tell you what context to read the poem in and make understanding the poem easier. For example, if it asks you to analyse ‘familial relationships’, you already have an idea of what the poem is about before you’ve even read it. While reading the poem, highlight any interesting language or structural choices, or any parts that stood out to you as a reader. Be careful not to get carried away with the highlighting however, otherwise you’ll loose your strongest quotes. While you are highlighting, go along and annotate the highlighted quotes so you don’t forget why you highlighted them. Try to pick out specific techniques the poet has used in the line, such as metaphors or enjambment, and think about the effect it has. Use different colours to write about language and structure, so you can check you have a good balance between them. Once you have the poem annotated, the good news is you’ve almost finished your plan! The annotations will be the foundation for the plan, now you must organise them into separate paragraphs to make them easier to follow when you’re writing your essay. The best essays are ‘idea driven’ instead of ‘technique driven’. This means instead of sorting together all your ideas into paragraphs like ‘structure’, ‘imagery’ or ‘language’, sort them into paragraphs based on themes. For example, for the ‘familial relationships’ question you could have a paragraph about mother/daughter relationships that explored a range of poetic techniques. Once your plan is complete, before jumping right into the main body of the essay, write a short introduction paragraph. This shouldn’t analyse any specific techniques, but rather show you have understood the poem and can engage with the poet’s ideas, and link them to the question.
Sometimes in exam situations your mind can go blank. If after reading the poem several times you still have no idea what it is about, don’t panic, and look at the poet’s word choices to try to get a sense of the atmosphere of the poem. A good part of a poems meaning is conferred upon it by the reader. If you’re not 100% sure what the poet means, talk about your own interpretation of it, and make a strong case for your interpretation by using quotes to back yourself up.