Inevitably the poems most people remember are the ones they learnt at school. Few people go on to extend their familiarity with poetry, so those poems have an important part in the individual's understanding of poetry. However those poems also, effectively, define for a generation what a poem is and what a poem should address. I find it particularly interesting looking at the texts chosen for a curriculum. Here are some examples.
England GCSE Power & Conflict
- John Agard - Checking Out Me History
- Simon Armitage - Remains
- William Blake - London
- Robert Browning - My Last Duchess
- Imtiaz Dharker - Tissue
- Carol Ann Duffy - War Photographer
- Beatrice Garland - Kamikaze
- Seamus Heaney - Storm on the Island
- Ted Hughes - Bayonet Charge
- Wilfred Owen - Exposure
- Carol Rumens - The Emigree
- Percy Bysshe Shelley - Ozymandias
- Alfred Lord Tennyson - The Charge of the Light Brigade
- Jane Weir - Poppies
- William Wordsworth - Extract from The Prelude
England GCSE Love & Relationships
- Simon Armitage - Mother, any distance greater than a single span
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Sonnet 29
- Robert Browning - Porphyria's Lover
- Lord Byron - When We Two Parted
- Charles Causley - Eden Rock
- Cecil Day-Lewis - Walking Away
- Maura Dooley - Letters from Yorkshire
- Carol Ann Duffy - Before You Were Mine
- Thomas Hardy - Neutral Tones
- Seamus Heaney - Follower
- Charlotte Mew - The Farmer's Bride
- Daljit Nagra - Singh Song
- Owen Sheers - Winter Swans
- Percy Bysshe Shelley - Love's Philosophy
- Andrew Waterhouse - Climbing My Grandfather