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O-LevelLiterature in EnglishPoetryOct/Nov 2019Paper 1 Q525 Marks

SECTION A: POETRY GILLIAN CLARKE: from Collected Poems Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing. Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it: My Box My box is made of golden oak, my lover's gift to me. He fitted hinges and a lock of brass and a bright key. He made it out of winter nights, sanded and oiled and planed, engraved inside the heavy lid in brass, a golden tree. In my box are twelve black books where I have written down how we have sanded, oiled and planed, planted a garden, built a wall, seen jays and goldcrests, rare red kites, found the wild heartsease, drilled a well, harvested apples and words and days and planted a golden tree. On an open shelf I keep my box. Its key is in the lock. I leave it there for you to read, or them, when we are dead, how everything is slowly made, how slowly things made me, a tree, a lover, words, a box, books and a golden tree. How does Clarke movingly convey the relationship between the lovers in this poem?

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About This O-Level Literature in English Question

This structured question appeared in the Cambridge O-Level Literature in English (2010) Oct/Nov 2019 examination, Paper 1 Variant 2. It tests the topic of Poetry and is worth 25 marks.

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