Read the poem 'Growth' by Les Murray on page 2 of the source booklet and reread the anthology poem 'A Minor Role' by U A Thanthorpe. Compare the methods that both poets use to explore responses to serious illness (30 Marks).

Obviously it is difficult to give an answer to an essay in only a couple of paragraphs. The most successful comparative essays, however, would normally follow the same general structure: a comparison of the form and structure of both poems, and a comparison of the poetic voice.
For form, since both of these poems are free verse (as they often are in the unseen part of English exams), fruitful commentary comes from more minor, but more easily noticeable, formal techniques: Murray's poem operates more consistently with shorter enjambed lines for a bleaker tone; Fanthorpe's form is more playful, using more caesura and interpolating the chorus from Oedipus Rex.
This basic distinction, then, between seriousness and playfulness, can lead to a discussion of how the different voices enact this tone.