A lot of people seem to be very confused about when to put 'of' after the little words 'comprise, consist, compose'. The thing to remember is that 'comprise' is a transitive verb, that is to say it does something to something. In fact the objects of the verb 'comprise' are usually the items in a list of some kind, as in 'the members of the Board comprise the Chairman, Managing Director and Non-Executive Directors' or 'lunch comprised a bowl of tomato soup with a hunk of granary bread.' Note that the word 'of' does not feature at all in conjunction with 'comprise'.

Neither 'consist' nor 'compose' are, in this sense, transitive verbs. You can't consist something. A thing just 'consists' but it must consist of other things. Thus the Board may consist of the Chairman, Executive and Non-Executive Directors and the Owner. Or a dessert may consist of eggs, cream, gelatine, chocolate and sugar - Mmmm!

You can compose a piece of music or other artistic work, of course, and in this sense 'compose' is transitive. However you don't compose the individual items which make up the whole. A composition - or anything else, for example a recipe or a class of children - 'is composed of' various things or people. Perhaps the Board is composed of Chairman, Directors and Government Advisor. You could also say 'the class was composed of children from many different ethnic backgrounds.'

So just remember:
A list comprises certain items
A list consists of certain items
A list is composed of certain items