Find everything you need to achieve your full potential with York Notes for GCSE Study Guides, now updated for GCSE (9-1).

The Guide has been written primarily for students of GCSE English Literature as specified by AQA in the post-2015 syllabus (8702). It addresses the requirement to study one cluster of poems taken from the AQA poetry anthology: Past and Present and the requirement to analyse and compare Unseen Poetry. The Guide covers all the poems in both the "Love and Relationships" and the "Power and Conflict" clusters in the Anthology.The poems are explored individually, and links and connections between them are drawn as appropriate. The format of each exploration is similar:* An explanation of key features of the poem that require contextual knowledge or illustration and the relationship between the text and its context. * A summary of the key themes of the poems, with a note on possible connections and links to other poems in the cluster* A brief summary of the metric form, rhyme scheme or other structural features* A "walk-through" (or explication) of the poem, ensuring that what is happening in the poem is understood, how the rhythm and rhyme contribute to meaning, an explanation of the meaning of words which may be unfamiliar, an exploration of language and imagery and a comment on main themes.

'One of Britain's outstanding poets' Sir Paul McCartney 'Riveting' Observer 'An exuberant account of a remarkable life' New Statesman This is a memoir as wry, funny, moving and vivid as its inimitable subject himself. This book will be a joy for both lifelong fans and for a whole new generation. John Cooper Clarke is a phenomenon: Poet Laureate of Punk, rock star, fashion icon, TV and radio presenter, social and cultural commentator. At 5 feet 11 inches (32in chest, 27in waist), in trademark dark suit, dark glasses, with dark messed-up hair and a mouth full of gold teeth, he is instantly recognizable. As a writer his voice is equally unmistakable and his own brand of slightly sick humour is never far from the surface. I Wanna Be Yours covers an extraordinary life, filled with remarkable personalities: from Nico to Chuck Berry, from Bernard Manning to Linton Kwesi Johnson, Elvis Costello to Gregory Corso, Gil Scott Heron, Mark E. Smith and Joe Strummer, and on to more recent fans and collaborators Alex Turner, Plan B and Guy Garvey. Interspersed with stories of his rock and roll and performing career, John also reveals his boggling encyclopaedic take on popular culture over the centuries: from Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe to Pop Art, pop music, the movies, fashion, football and showbusiness – and much, much more, plus a few laughs along the way.

Mrs Midas, Queen Kong, Mrs Lazarus, the Kray sisters, and a huge cast of others startle with their wit, imagination, lyrical intuition and incisiveness.

In Feminine Gospels, Carol Ann Duffy draws on the historical, the archetypal, the biblical and the fantastical to create various visions – and revisions – of female identity. Simultaneously stripping women bare and revealing them in all their guises and disguises, these poems tell tall stories as though they were true confessions, and spin modern myths from real women seen in every aspect – as bodies and corpses, writers and workers, shoppers and slimmers, fairytale royals or girls-next-door. ‘Part of Duffy’s talent – besides her ear for ordinary eloquence, her gorgeous, powerful, throwaway lines, her subtlety – is her ventriloquism . . . From verbal nuances to mind-expanding imaginative leaps, her words seem freshly plucked from the minds of non-poets – that is, she makes it look easy’ Charlotte Mendelson, Observer