How do I approach an unseen poem in an exam?

An exam question asking your thoughts on an unseen poetry is assessing your ability to understand the key message and techniques of a written piece of work. The important thing to remember with this sort of question is that there is no wrong answer. It is easy to be intimidated by an unseen poem, but every interpretation of a poem is valid as long as your argument can be supported by evidence from the poem. As long as you can back up your claims concerning the poem, this is what matters. Approach this sort of exam question by revising key poetic techniques and forms to ensure you have a broad background knowledge of subject terminology you can apply within an exam environment. Examiners will be assessing your analysis of language, structure, and form, so make sure you are thinking about all of these criteria and mention all in your answer.Begin by thoroughly reading the poem at least twice, making notes about any significant ideas concerning the poem’s content, structure, and language as you do so. Make sure you have a clear understanding of what the poem is about before you think about any close literary analysis – for example, is the poem about love? heartbreak? war? Then hunt for closer analysis. What is the structure of the poem (does it fit into a particular poetic category such as a sonnet? How many stanzas are there?) Is there a rhyme scheme and what is it? What is the rhythm of the poem (how many beats in a bar?) A useful thing to consider when answering these questions is to also look if a regular rhyme scheme breaks down with some non-rhyming words or half-rhymes, as this disjunction in regular rhyme scheme can place evidence on certain interesting words or phrases. Then look for techniques such as, for example, alliteration, simile, metaphor, personification, and onomatopoeia. Go through the poem and make your answers to these questions clear by circling, highlighting, or underlining evidence so you can clearly see what you want to talk about. Approach answering the question by focusing on your gut reactions to the poem. Every point you want to make should have a paragraph of its own which relates to your overall argument, and there should be a sense of flow to your essay. If your gut instinct upon reading the poem is that it is describing the speaker’s homesickness, for example, then make sure every paragraph you write is related to this overall argument. Planning an unseen poetry exam answer relies on being confident with your gut response and initial instinct upon reading the poem. As long as you can back up your ideas with evidence from the poem, then every interpretation is valid.