English poetry

6thyearlife

I know everyone thinks Heaney is bound to appear but does anyone else not want to answer on him? I can't stand him. I think dickenson may appear, I hope

TooMuchStudy

He'll probably come up as a tough question

Mr Pseudonym

6thyearlife wrote: »

I know everyone thinks Heaney is bound to appear but does anyone else not want to answer on him? I can't stand him. I think dickenson may appear, I hope

Make sure you spell her name correctly, if she does...

Calvin

Heaney or Plath! Even though Plath bores me to pieces, I can write some good stuff on her depressing poetry! It's what makes me remember her stuff..how depressing it was listening to it in class. My hatred fuels my writing, I guess. Think she came up last year though, so that hope is tossed out of the window.

We've only done Heaney and Plath so far..should I be worried?

thelad95

I'm not a big fan of his either. His poems are either about love or to do with Northern Ireland and its difficult to link the two in one essay. I like Kinsella and Dickinson myself. Mahon is also 'easier' but he probably won't come up again this year

XxXNIMRODXxX

Same here! I can't stand his poetry, I feel like it's much more difficult to understand than some of the other poet's, maybe that's just me though! Everyone is obviously saying he's going to come up and I'm freaking out because he's definitely the poet I know least.

3raser10

no matter how hard you study for a poet, on the exam day all that matters is if you focused on the Q or not! & since everyone is expecting Heaney I bet the Q will be so tough! Hopefully i won't have to do the Q on Heaney (if he comes up). I really wish Larkin comes up this year though (not a woman & not an Irish poet so hopefully his Q will be easier to focus on:D)

accountname

Trust me you're not the only one, found him sinfully boring I'm afraid. We've covered him, Yeats (hate isn't the word), Mahon, Bishop and Plath (whom I all love). Still raging that they got such nice poets last year, leaves me regretting doing 4th year! :P

Sparkyhav

We've done Dickinson, Larkin, Yeats and Heaney. Kinsella is yet to be finished. :pac: As everyone has already said, Heaney will probably come up but as a difficult question. :rolleyes:
To be honest, I cannot stand any of the poets on this course, even if I've only covered four so far! Dickinson or Yeats is probably the easiest for me, but I still hate them all.. :L I'm sorry, I'll stop my ranting before I go into detail about my hatred for these poets.. :pac:
Anyways.. Is it bad that my teacher will only be covering five poets with us? (We were supposed to do six but she took the lazy way out :pac: ) Or is this the norm?

thelad95

Sparkyhav wrote: »

We've done Dickinson, Larkin, Yeats and Heaney. Kinsella is yet to be finished. :pac: As everyone has already said, Heaney will probably come up but as a difficult question. :rolleyes:
To be honest, I cannot stand any of the poets on this course, even if I've only covered four so far! Dickinson or Yeats is probably the easiest for me, but I still hate them all.. :L I'm sorry, I'll stop my ranting before I go into detail about my hatred for these poets.. :pac:
Anyways.. Is it bad that my teacher will only be covering five poets with us? (We were supposed to do six but she took the lazy way out :pac: ) Or is this the norm?

I'm repeating this year and last year we did 5 and in the last week of May before we were let off ourteacher half-arsed a 6th which I ended up answering! :rolleyes: I dont see any plausible reason why teachers are 'meant' to do six poets. In addition they are 'meant' to cover all three aspects of the comparative but what is the point in this?

Forever and Always

Good luck in the leaving cert people! You'll be grand

EliteC

I don't think Heaney will come up.
Firstly, it would be a very obvious choice as all the buzz is surrounding him, persay.
Secondly, they are trying to make exams less predictible and putting Heaney on the exam would be a step in the wrong direction.
Finally, Heaney hasn't appeared on the exam in over 10 years, while other Irish poets come up every 3-4 years.

If he does come up I think it would be something like
Discuss how Seamus Heaney loses his childhood innocence with relevant reference to his poetry.
or
Seamus Heaney relies heavily on imagery in his peotry. Discuss how imagery influenced your opinion on Seamus Heaney's peotry.

thelad95

EliteC wrote: »

I don't think Heaney will come up.
Firstly, it would be a very obvious choice as all the buzz is surrounding him, persay.
Secondly, they are trying to make exams less predictible and putting Heaney on the exam would be a step in the wrong direction.
Finally, Heaney hasn't appeared on the exam in over 10 years, while other Irish poets come up every 3-4 years.

If he does come up I think it would be something like
Discuss how Seamus Heaney loses his childhood innocence with relevant reference to his poetry.
or
Seamus Heaney relies heavily on imagery in his peotry. Discuss how imagery influenced your opinion on Seamus Heaney's peotry.

Heaney will come up. Think of the outrage there would be if he didn't. It would be more than just the usual 'everyone expected him to come up for no tangible reason apart from everyone expecting it' eg Plath two years ago. It would be seen by some as an insult to the man and his legacy as a poet if they didn't 'honour' him by putting him on the paper.
Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of his poetry and under no circumstances should anyone study just him.
I don't know why there's always this hype about poets every year you need to learn 5 poets. You have two years to do it. Get on with it. Rant over

spurious

thelad95 wrote: »

I dont see any plausible reason why teachers are 'meant' to do six poets. In addition they are 'meant' to cover all three aspects of the comparative but what is the point in this?

It's about teaching and enabling students to appreciate writing in the English language. This is actually what an English teacher's job is meant to be.