GCSE Unseen Poetry Practice: late lingua

Explore a new unseen poem by Khairani Barokka. A video interview with the poet and an accompanying worksheet illustrate techniques GCSE students can use to practise approaching unseen poems.

Aimed at Key Stage 4 students, the video introduces students to the ‘5 Ws - who/ what/ where/ why/ when’, the ‘2 Ts - theme and tone’, and the concept of ‘perspective’. Approaches to the unseen covered here can be applied to other poems students might meet in the future. The video comes with an accompanying worksheet, freely available to download.

We hear the poem, ‘late lingua’, read aloud by the poet and watch an interview with her, explaining why she made particular poetic choices. Along the way, the video touches on features of language, aiming to bring literary terminology alive and offering a fascinating insight into why poets use different poetic devices