Poems of the Decade is a collection of poems from the first decade of the 21st century, published by the Forward Poetry Foundation. A selection of 20 of these poems has been chosen by Edexcel for the Poetry paper of the A Level specification.
The selected poems cover a wide range of styles and subject matter, opening up plenty of material for discussion. It is often profitable to make connections between them, but in Edexcel Paper 3, students are asked to compare a previously unseen poem with one from Poems of the Decade.
The list of poems set for study appears below. Follow the links for discussion of individual poems.
Eat Me Patience Agbabi
Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass Simon Armitage
Material Ros Barber
History John Burnside
An Easy Passage Julia Copus
The Deliverer Tishani Doshi
The Lammas Hireling Ian Duhig
To My Nine-Year-Old Self Helen Dunmore
A Minor Role UA Fanthorpe
The Gun Vicki Feaver
The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled Leontia Flynn
Giuseppe Roderick Ford
Out of the Bag Seamus Heaney
Effects Alan Jenkins
Genetics Sinéad Morrissey
From the Journal of a Disappointed Man Andrew Motion
Look We Have Coming to Dover! Daljit Nagra
Please Hold Ciaran O’Driscoll
On Her Blindness Adam Thorpe
Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn Tim Turnbull