MsEffi e’s List
of Poetry Essay Prompts
for Advanced Placement® Eng lish
Literature Exams, 1970 - 2019 *
*Advanced Placement® is a trademark registered by the College Board, which
is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, this website.
Each poem is included in the following prompts, printed on separate pages for better use in the
classroom. None of the prompts are original to me, but are Advanced Placement® English Literature
and Composition Exam prompts. This is my best effort to comply with College Board’s use
requirements.
,1970 Poem: “Elegy for Jane” (Theodore Roethke)
Prompt: Write an essay in which you describe the speaker’s attitude toward his former student, Jane.
Elegy for Jane by Theodore Roethke
I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
5 A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.
10 Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.
My sparrow, you are not here,
15 Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.
If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
20 Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.
1971 Poem: “The Unknown Citizen” (W.H. Auden)
,Prompt: In a brief essay, identify at least two of the implications implicit in the society reflected in the
poem. Support your statements by specific references to the poem.
The Unknown Citizen by W.H. Auden
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
5 For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
10 For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
15 And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
20 And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
25 He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
, 1976 Poem: “Poetry of Departures” (Philip Larkin)
Prompt: Write an essay in which you discuss how the poem’s diction (choice of words) reveals his
attitude toward the two ways of living mentioned in the poem.
Poetry Of Departures by Philip Larkin
Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
5 And always the voice will sound
Certain you approve
This audacious, purifying,
Elemental move.
And they are right, I think.
10 We all hate home
And having to be there:
I detest my room,
It’s specially-chosen junk,
The good books, the good bed,
15 And my life, in perfect order:
So to hear it said
He walked out on the whole crowd
Leaves me flushed and stirred,
Like Then she undid her dress
20 Or Take that you bastard;
Surely I can, if he did?
And that helps me to stay
Sober and industrious.
But I’d go today,
25 Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads,
Crouch in the fo’c’sle
Stubbly with goodness, if
It weren’t so artificial,
Such a deliberate step backwards
30 To create an object:
Books; china; a life
Reprehensibly perfect.
