Bedrock poems: the six to know coldest, and why

The map on the wall of every London Underground station is wrong about where the stations are. Why, then, do millions of people trust it to get them home? Because Harry Beck, who designed it in the nineteen thirties, threw the geography away on purpose. He kept only what a traveller needs: the lines, their order, and where they meet. The distances are wrong, and the connections are exact. Fifteen poems. One will be printed in front of you, and you will have about forty-five minutes and no anthology. You have to know all fifteen, and you cannot know all fifteen equally. Which ones, then, do you want to know coldest? The answer comes from the connections, the way Beck's map does.

First, the rule this video never bends. The specification says students should study all fifteen poems and be prepared to write about any of them. This video is about which ones you can write about from memory under pressure, not about which ones to drop. Move one is what a mark scheme gives you. Every mark scheme lists points examiners might expect, including second poems that would work, and that list is called the indicative content. The paper has been sat seven times in June, from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty-five, with no exams in twenty twenty or twenty twenty-one. Any of the fifteen poems can be the printed one. So nobody can tell you which poem will be printed, or which second poem a question will suit. What you can do is choose six poems that reach every part of the paper: Exposure, the Light Brigade, Storm on the Island, London, Kamikaze, and Checking Out Me History. Move two is reach, and it is why these six. Each of them sits in three strands at once, so between them they reach all five, and any printed poem shares a strand with at least one of them. Exposure is printed, on the power of nature. Which shares that strand: My Last Duchess, Storm on the Island, or Poppies? Storm on the Island. Its enemy is a huge nothing made of weather, so it meets Exposure on the power of nature, and on the reality of conflict too. Move three is honesty about the poems outside the six. Ozymandias and My Last Duchess are not weak poems, and either could be printed or chosen. They are left out because of reach: My Last Duchess answers power alone, so it fits beside fewer printed poems. Move four is about the choice itself. The printed poem is in front of you, and your second poem never is. The Charge of the Light Brigade is one of the six, so it can always be that second poem. Now a different question: why does that make the Light Brigade worth knowing cold? Because when you choose it, there is no page to look at, so it has to be learned already. Here are the six, each with one travelling line. Exposure: "But nothing happens." The Light Brigade: "Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred". Storm on the Island: "it is a huge nothing that we fear". London: "The mind-forged manacles I hear". Kamikaze: "he must have wondered which had been the better way to die". And Checking Out Me History: "Bandage up me eye with me own history." "Blind me to me own identity.". One warning on Storm on the Island: paired with Exposure, it can slide into a list about the weather. The video on the power of nature shows how to pair those two properly.

That is how to choose. Six poems that each sit in several strands reach every strand between them. Knowing those six to the bone means no printed poem can strand you.

One examiner's report puts the deeper point like this: All choices of comparison were best served by students having a clear idea from the beginning of their essays as to why these poems were similar or different, and this often hinged upon a very clear interpretation of what conflict meant in the context of each poem. It goes on: Even the more unusual choices were well answered when candidates had a clear idea about this in their minds. So an unusual choice is not a risk if you can say why the two poems belong together. The habit is to decide that reason before you write a word.

Now make a live choice. The printed poem is Exposure, and the question asks about ideas about conflict. Three steps help. Name the strand the question is really asking about. Pick the poem whose difference from Exposure you can explain, not the one you like most. And put the reason into one sentence before you write anything. Take your pick, and hold on to your reason before I show you. Here is one good choice: Remains. Both poems show conflict destroying soldiers without a battle. Owen's men freeze while nothing happens, and Armitage's soldier is destroyed by a doubt long after the shooting. The Light Brigade works too, for a different reason: both show men sent into death by forces they cannot question. Tennyson asks you to admire the obedience; Owen shows its cost. Two wrong turns to avoid. Choosing the poem you know best, whether or not it fits the question, leaves you forcing the comparison. And choosing a poem you cannot connect to the question in one sentence means the essay has no spine.

To finish, four questions on the six, the last one a choice you have not seen yet. Say London is printed, on power. Which of the other five could you write about beside it? The Light Brigade or Checking Out Me History, because both sit in power, as London does. Now the rule: what does the specification say about the fifteen? Study all fifteen and be prepared to write about any of them. The six are what you know coldest, never a list of what to skip. Try this: why are Ozymandias and My Last Duchess not among the six? Reach: each answers fewer strands, so it fits beside fewer printed poems. One more: Kamikaze is printed, on identity. Which of the six would you put beside it? Checking Out Me History, London or Storm on the Island: all three sit in identity and belonging. Agard's speaker, who takes his voice back, makes the sharpest contrast with a pilot who is never given one. Beck's map works because it keeps the connections and drops the rest. Your six bedrock poems are the connections, and the specification still asks you to know the whole map.

Six poems, two possible questions for each, from memory: you know your six, so give the video its thumbs-up. Short of that, test yourself on the six once a week until the exam.

Next in the chapter: Your paper: one printed poem, one free choice, and the rule about structure. Hopefully that's next in your feed, but if not, search for ScholaFly E L four oh, two three.

Every other video is on scholafly.com too, easy to search by video code or by keyword. Whatever you're revising, go there and have a look, or, watch the next video.