GCSE
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools ...
The 2000 AQA anthology covered four sections: poets in the English Literary Heritage, poems from other cultures and traditions, 20th-century prose, and 20th- or pre-20th-century poetry.
English: Poets in the English Literary Heritage
Simon Armitage
*"I Am Very Bothered When I Think"
*"Poem"
*"It Ain't What You Do, It's What It Does To You"
*"Cataract Operation"
*"About His Person"
Ted Hughes
*"Works and Play"
*"The Warm and the Cold"
*"The Tractor"
*"Wind"
*"Hawk Roosting"
Carol Ann Duffy
*"War Photographer"
*"Valentine"
*"Stealing"
*"Before You Were Mine"
*"In Mrs. Tilscher's Class"
Blessing
In religion, a blessing (also used to refer to bestowing of such) is the impartation of something with doctrines of grace, grace, Sacred, holiness, spiritual Redemption (theology), redemption, or Will of God, divine will.
Etymology and Germani ...
English literature: 20th- or pre-20th-century poetry
*"Hearts and Partners"
*"That Old Rope"
*"When the Going Gets Tough"
2004 Anthology
The 2004 AQA Anthology was a collection of poems and short texts. The anthology was split into several sections covering poems from other cultures, the poetry of
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...
Carol Ann Duffy
Dame Carol Ann Duffy (born 23 December 1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, and her term expired in 2019. She wa ...
and Simon Armitage, and a bank of pre-1914 poems. There was also a section of prose pieces, which could have been studied in schools which had chosen not to study a separate set text.
English: Poems from Other Cultures
GCSE English students studied all of the poems in either cluster and answered a question on them in Section A of Paper 2. In 2005, Andrew Cunningham, an English teacher at
Charterhouse School
Charterhouse is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Godalming, Surrey, England. Founded by Thomas Sutton in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian monastery in Charter ...
complained in the ''Telegraph'' that the inclusion of the poems represented an "obsession with multi-culturalism".
Limbo
The unofficial term Limbo (, or , referring to the edge of Hell) is the afterlife condition in medieval Catholic theology, of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the Damned. However, it has become the gene ...
Blessing
In religion, a blessing (also used to refer to bestowing of such) is the impartation of something with doctrines of grace, grace, Sacred, holiness, spiritual Redemption (theology), redemption, or Will of God, divine will.
Etymology and Germani ...
Mali
Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...
Anne Hathaway
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress. List of awards and nominations received by Anne Hathaway, Her accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime ...
*from '' Book of Matches, “Mother, any distance greater than a single span”''
*from ''Book of Matches'', “My father thought it...”
*"Homecoming"
*"November"
*" Kid"
*from ''Book of Matches'', “Those bastards in their mansions”
*from ''Book of Matches'', “I've made out a will; I'm leaving myself”
*"Hitcher"
*"The Manhunt"
Pre-1914 Poetry Bank
*
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson ( 11 June 1572 – ) was an English playwright, poet and actor. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satire, satirical ...
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th century in literature, 20th-century literature. He was ...
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
:
Sonnet 130
Sonnet 130 is a sonnet by William Shakespeare, published in 1609 as one of his Shakespeare's sonnets, 154 sonnets. It mocks the conventions of the showy and flowery courtly sonnets in its realistic portrayal of Dark Lady (Shakespeare), his mistre ...
- "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"
*
Robert Browning
Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian literature, Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentar ...
Robert Browning
Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian literature, Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentar ...
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish poet, novelist, playwright, and hack writer. A prolific author of various literature, he is regarded among the most versatile writers of the Georgian e ...
John Clare
John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and his sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20t ...
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
Flight
Flight or flying is the motion (physics), motion of an Physical object, object through an atmosphere, or through the vacuum of Outer space, space, without contacting any planetary surface. This can be achieved by generating aerodynamic lift ass ...
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
Graham Swift
Graham Colin Swift FRSL (born 4 May 1949) is a British people, British writer. Born in London, UK, he was educated at Dulwich College, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York.
Career
Some of Swift's books have been filmed ...
In 2008 the Anthology was reissued without "Education for Leisure" following complaints about its reference to knives and concerns about rising levels of knife crime in schools. In the new Anthology the poem was replaced with a " This page is left intentionally blank" notice. After removing "Education for Leisure" from the anthology the exam board was accused of
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...
.
2010 Anthology
The fifth anthology was produced for first teaching in 2010.
The anthology includes poems under the heading "Moon on the Tides" and prose under the heading "Sunlight on the Grass". Some of the poems are by authors of poems in the first anthology such as Agard and Armitage.
The poetry anthology was divided into four clusters, titled "Character and voice", "Place", "Conflict", and "Relationships".
Poems
Character and voice
*'The Clown Punk' by Simon Armitage
*'Checking Out Me History' by John Agard
*'Horse Whisperer' by Andrew Forster
*'Medusa' by Carol Ann Duffy
*'Singh Song!' by
Daljit Nagra
Daljit Nagra (born 1966) is a British poet whose debut collection, ''Look We Have Coming to Dover!'' was published by Faber in 2007. Nagra's poems relate to the experience of Indians born in the UK (especially Indian Sikhs), and often employ l ...
*'Brendon Gallacher' by
Jackie Kay
Jacqueline Margaret Kay (born 9 November 1961) is a Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist, known for her works ''Other Lovers'' (1993), ''Trumpet'' (1998) and ''Red Dust Road'' (2011). Kay has won many awards, including the Somerset Maugham A ...
*'Give' by Simon Armitage
*'Les Grands Seigneurs' by Dorothy Molloy
*'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
*'My Last Duchess' by Robert Browning
*'The River God' by Stevie Smith
*'The Hunchback in the Park' by Dylan Thomas
*' The Ruined Maid' by Thomas Hardy
*'Casehistory: Alison (head injury)' by U. A. Fanthorpe
*'On a Portrait of a Deaf Man' by John Betjeman
Place
*'The Blackbird of Glanmore' by Seamus Heaney
*'A Vision' by Simon Armitage
*'The Moment' by
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight chi ...
*'Cold Knap Lake' by Gillian Clarke
*'Price We Pay for the Sun' by Grace Nichols
*'Neighbours' by Gillian Clarke
*'Crossing the Loch' by Kathleen Jamie
*'Hard Water' by Jean Sprackland
*'London' by
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...
*'Flag' by John Agard
*'Out of the Blue' extract by Simon Armitage
*'Mametz Wood' by Owen Sheers
*'The Yellow Palm' by Robert Minhinnick
*'The Right Word' by Imtiaz Dharker
*'At the Border' by Choman Hardi
*'Belfast Confetti' by Ciaran Carson
*'Poppies' by Jane Weir
*'Futility' by
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen Military Cross, MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of Trench warfare, trenches and Chemi ...
Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English writer of romanticism, romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well k ...
*'My Polish Teacher's Tie' by Helen Dunmore
*'When the Wasps Drowned' by Clare Wigfall
*'Compass and Torch' by Elizabeth Baines
*'On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning' by
Haruki Murakami
is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for hi ...
The newest edition of the anthology was produced for first teaching in September 2015, in line with the reformed GCSE English Literature qualification. The anthology includes poems under the title "Poems Past and Present", and prose under the title "Telling Tales", which can be studied as an option for the post-1914 text (However, the anthology was only studied by 0.27% of candidates in the June 2024 series, with the majority of centres instead opting for '' An Inspector Calls''.)
The poetry anthology is divided into three clusters: "Love and Relationships", "Power and Conflict" and "Worlds and Lives", with the latter being introduced in 2023 for first exams in 2025.
Poems Past and Present
Love and Relationships
* 'When We Two Parted' by
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
Robert Browning
Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian literature, Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentar ...
Cecil Day-Lewis
Cecil Day-Lewis (or Day Lewis; 27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972), often written as C. Day-Lewis, was an Anglo-Irish poet and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudony ...
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...
* 'Mother, any distance' by Simon Armitage
* 'Before You Were Mine' by
Carol Ann Duffy
Dame Carol Ann Duffy (born 23 December 1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, and her term expired in 2019. She wa ...
* 'Winter Swans' by Owen Sheers
* 'Singh Song!' by
Daljit Nagra
Daljit Nagra (born 1966) is a British poet whose debut collection, ''Look We Have Coming to Dover!'' was published by Faber in 2007. Nagra's poems relate to the experience of Indians born in the UK (especially Indian Sikhs), and often employ l ...
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
* '
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
' by
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...
Robert Browning
Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian literature, Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentar ...
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of ...
* 'Exposure' by
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen Military Cross, MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of Trench warfare, trenches and Chemi ...
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...
Carol Ann Duffy
Dame Carol Ann Duffy (born 23 December 1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, and her term expired in 2019. She wa ...
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
* 'Shall earth no more inspire thee' by Emily Brontë
* 'In a London Drawingroom' by George Eliot
* 'On an Afternoon Train from Purley to Victoria, 1955' by James Berry
* 'Name Journeys' by Raman Mundair
* 'pot' by Shamshad Khan
* 'A Wider View' by Seni Seneviratne
* 'Homing' by Liz Berry
* 'A Century Later' by Imtiaz Dharker
* 'The Jewellery Maker' by Louisa Adjoa Parker
* 'With Birds You’re Never Lonely' by
Raymond Antrobus
Raymond Antrobus is a British poet, educator and writer who has been performing poetry since 2007. In March 2019, he won the Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry.Roger Robinson
* 'Like an Heiress' by Grace Nichols
* 'Thirteen' by Caleb Femi
Telling Tales
* 'Chemistry' by Graham Swift
* 'Odour of Chrysanthemums' by
DH Lawrence
David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His Literary modernism, modernist works reflect on modernity ...
* 'My Polish Teacher's Tie' by Helen Dunmore
* 'Korea' by John McGahern
* 'A Family Supper' by
Kazuo Ishiguro
is a Japanese-born English novelist, screenwriter, musician, and short-story writer. He is one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary fiction authors writing in English, having been awarded several major literary prizes, including the 2 ...
* 'Invisible Mass of the Back Row' by Claudette Williams
* 'The Darkness Out There' by Penelope Lively
See also
* Poetry Live, events where poets perform their poetry for school children