I am a highly approachable Independent Expert Private English/English Literature Tutor located in Greater Manchester with over twenty years teaching and tutoring experience from Secondary to Postgraduate Degree level.
This is a disorientating poem. It communicates a profound sadness and despair through its choice of language, images and sounds, all combining to produce an elegy for a loss that extends far beyond… Read More »Stevie Smith, ‘Come on, Come back.’ An Analysis-the mind gone walkabout?
This is an analysis of Mametz Wood, stanza by stanza: For years afterwards the farmers found them – the wasted young, turning up under their plough blades as they tended the land… Read More »Owen Sheers: Mametz Wood: A Short Analysis
We are on the verge of the GCSE English examinations once more, so I thought I would look again at Carol Ann Duffy’s Hour, a poem originally collected in Carol Ann… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's 'Hour': Goldfinger, Midas and the ecstasy of Love!.
Years ago there was a song by The Smiths’ Morrissey with the happy sing-a-long line ”shyness is nice”.It might have been catchy but I didn’t agree with him at all,… Read More »English Tutor/tuition Manchester, Bolton and Bury: How to be shy and enjoy it! Part One
The tiny red hand lifted the bottom blind and watched the boy trying to pick up a worm on the path. He looked happy for once and the hand let… Read More »English Tutor Bolton, Bury and Manchester: The Face in the Wall- Climbing Tiles.
Last Saturday I taught this poem and found lots more to say as I realised I had missed so much before. Surely that is the secret of a good poem? It has… Read More »Andrew Forster's Brothers : An Analysis Revisited.
It burnt him. Stung at his open eyes. And even if he found he could blink away the sharp grains, the room still looked odd, far away. He felt tired… Read More »English Tutor/tuition Manchester, Bolton and Bury: The Face in the Wall and the sand.
Phoenix Writers – a short introduction The Phoenix Writers’ Group has been running since Easter 2008 in its current home at the Horwich Resource Centre on Beaumont Road. Before that,… Read More »Join Phoenix Writers in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester!
Nettles by Vernon Scannell My son aged three fell in the nettle bed. ‘Bed’ seemed a curious name for those green spears, That regiment of spite behind the shed: It was… Read More »Vernon Scannell's 'Nettles': An Analysis of the AQA poem.
Saddled with you for the afternoon,me and Paul ambled across the threadbare field to the bus stop, talking over Sheffield Wednesday’s chances in the cup while you skipped beside us… Read More »Andrew Forster’s ‘Brothers’: An Analysis- how casual is betrayal?
Someone famous had once turned their face to the wall and died because they had run out of the words they cared about. The face couldn’t recall who they were and perhaps… Read More »English tutor/tuition Manchester, Bolton and Bury: The Face in the wall remembers George.
After the first phase, after passionate nights and intimate days, only then would he let me trace the frozen river which ran through his face, only then would he let… Read More »Simon Armitage's 'The Manhunt': An Analysis-intimacy as painful awe?
The Farrand Chapelette was gathering dust in the shadowy porch of Marsden Church. And was due to be bundled off to the skip. Or was mine, for a song, if… Read More »Simon Armitage’s ‘Harmonium’: An Analysis-the scent of lost time?
It was late July. Summer Sturridge was watching her brother, Stephen, eat an ice cream for the first time in nearly ten years. Aside from their surname and the fact that their father had… Read More »English Tutor Manchester Bolton and Bury: The Face in The Wall-The Sturridges.
Reading a poem can challenge you. It can take you away from the certainties associated with your understanding. and this can be uncomfortable and exasperating. What is the point you may say?Sometimes however, although… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy’s Hour: An Analysis-finding the key to a poem?
Tightly-folded bud, I have wished you something None of the others would: Not the usual stuff About being beautiful, Or running off a spring Of innocence and love – They… Read More »Philip Larkin’s ‘Born Yesterday’: An Analysis-GCSE English AQA.
Sometimes as you approach the Easter holiday break, the texts you studied seem distant memories, and you feel less confident about your knowledge and essay writing. If this is you… Read More »English GCE, GCSE Revision Bolton, Manchester and Bury.
George leant against the old chair and spoke to the wall. His voice was quiet. Careful. Everyone was asleep, though he could smell smoke from somewhere outside. The eyes watched him,… Read More »English tutoring/tuition Manchester, Bolton and Bury: The Face in The Wall-Smoke and Dust.
Today is a day when we may all feel the hint of the ‘away and see’ part of life. Already at 8-30am there is a soft glow of slow sunshine… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's 'Away and See': An analysis to feed creative writing!
As Easter approaches students are aware of the nearness of May with the GCSE, A Level and Undergraduate examinations. If you are facing any of these examinations and need a… Read More »English Tuition Manchester, Bolton and Bury: GCSE English Descriptive Writing Boost
Phoenix Writers’ Group Horwich, meets every Thursday between 10-12, except during school holidays at Horwich resource centre. Their book entitled Fleeting Moments has just been published and will shortly be available… Read More »Phoenix Writers' Group Horwich Bolton: Thursdays 10-12
Tusi Notes Carol Ann Duffy’s Havisham and Dickens’ Great Expectations. Carol Ann Duffy is an expert at exploring the uneasy aftermath of love. Both her poetry collections Mean Time and… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Havisham and Dickens' Great Expectations.
I am not sure if this is a great poem, I rather think it too abrupt and unfinished to linger on in the mind, as great poems tend to do. … Read More »Mary Coleridge's The Moment: An Analysis
www.haddockbash.wordpress.com Great new film telling of the important part, now shamefully forgotten, played by fish in securing victory in the First World War. Fish worked in intelligence gathering and tank sabotage, and used to… Read More »War Fish: From Haddock Bashing
www.haddockbash.wordpress.com This is a new blog created by Mark Wrigley aiming to bring the surreal into the daily ! Each day promises new slants on our strange world. It is… Read More »Haddock Bashing! A New Blog by Mark Wrigley
If anyone had left the kitchen before coffee, Carla would have been discovered in the hall. But as fate would have it, they all remained together around the table, each… Read More »The plasticine men: Carla meets the face.
The red plasticine figure crouched besides the clock. She had taken her time to get here. But she had lots of time now she was reforming. Her shape and size… Read More »The Red Plasticine Figure: Carla's Revenge.
The hunchback in the park A solitary mister Propped between trees and water From the opening of the garden lock That lets the trees and water enter Until the… Read More »Dylan Thomas 'The Hunchback in the Park': An Analysis
The cemetery car park was choked with cars. Everyone was patient though most of Caroline’s friends were not patient by nature. But this was a sad afternoon and besides that, everyone… Read More »English tuition in Bolton, Manchester and the North West: Caroline's Do.
I have an affinity with rage on this blog! Medusa gets lots of attention and so does Miss Havisham and even David Almond’s The Savage. Perhaps it is the most… Read More »Dylan Thomas: Do not go gentle into that good night(Revisited)
