Poetry — Class 12 ISC English revision notes
A 4-page visual revision sheet for Poetry, written for Class 12 ISC English. Formulas, diagrams and the traps that cost marks, laid out to be read the night before rather than the term before. Free, and it opens inside CapCompass.
Page 1 as PDF
Poetry in one look
five poems, the extract and the appreciation
The five poems
- Telephone Conversation: Wole Soyinka, a dramatic monologue in which a landlady's questions about skin colour expose casual racism through dark humour
- Tithonus: Alfred Lord Tennyson, a mythic figure granted eternal life but not eternal youth, pleading to be released from his own immortality
- Beethoven: Shane Koyczan, the composer's deafness read as a story about creating beauty from within silence and struggle
- Small Towns and the River: Mamang Dai, a river's steady permanence set against the small, passing griefs of the town beside it
- Death Be Not Proud: John Donne, a sonnet that argues death has no real power, since it is itself only a passage, not an end
Poetry extract and activities, what the extract asks
- an extract question tests the same reading skills as prose, complete a line, state a meaning, pick the right paraphrase
- a choose the correct alternative question is testing inference, the wrong options usually restate the line too literally
- picking out lines for a table rewards a slow first read rather than skimming for a keyword
- a line asked to be rewritten in your own words should keep the poem's meaning, not just swap a few words for synonyms
Reading a poem before answering
- read the poem aloud once in full before touching a question, the rhythm often carries meaning prose misses
- note who the poem addresses and who speaks it, Telephone Conversation is a dramatic monologue built on one side of a call
- underline the shift if there is one, from humour to anger, from longing to weary acceptance, from grief to defiance
- a glossed word at the margin is there because the question will likely use it too
Page 1 of 4. The full sheet, all 4 pages, opens free in the app.
What this Poetry sheet covers
- The five poems
- Telephone Conversation
- Tithonus
- Beethoven
- Small Towns and the River
- Death Be Not Proud
- Poetry extract and activities, what the extract asks
- Reading a poem before answering
- Poetic appreciation, the six points expected
- Death Be Not Proud, beyond the appreciation checklist
- Answering a devices question, one line fully worked
- Traps that cost marks
- Tricks that save time
How CapCompass uses this sheet
These notes are not a standalone PDF. CapCompass plans English chapter by chapter against your real exam dates and free hours, and when the plan reaches Poetry the sheet opens inside the study block itself — at the page covering the sub-topic that block is on, with the timer still running. Revision arrives at the moment the plan says revise, instead of having to be gone looking for.