1st Read-through: - Read it out loud. - Make sure you have a dictionary and a pen nearby! - Get the general idea. continued. Writing about poetry can be difficult. We know it’s a metaphor since the speaker is not literally describing some recent journey. The meaning of the second poem can be grasped by indirection: 1. So you are The poet makes a personification or simile between you (a girl) and roses (that are red). A narrative? A sonnet? Revised 2016 – Clark Academic Center How to Analyze a Poem Before You Read: - Read a short biography; have some knowledge of the author. To be able to understand and write about the way a poem works, you need to spend some time thinking analytically about the poem before you start your draft. Readers should read through a poem several times, at least once aloud. It can also help to hear someone else read the poem. • How does the poem shift from person to person or between different times or places?_____ Most poems tell us about a poet’s understanding of an experience so the beginning will be different then the end. The theme of a poem is its central topic, subject, or message. Imagine it appears in a poem about the end of a relationship. Violets are blue 3. The change may be in feelings, language (slang to formal), or connotation (positive to negative). Sugar is sweet 4. Roses are red 2. The first poem is a narrative because the lines in the poem make or form a story (a narrative), the second poem does not make a narrative or a story. If irregular, why? 9. - Identify characters. If it is a long poem, such as Allen Ginsberg's Howl or Hart Crane's The Bridge, readers should concentrate on key passages and look for repetition of specific words, phrases, or verses in the poem. - Find a turning point, if possible. Explain how these shifts convey the poem’s message. a poem will help to understand and analyze poems. Is the poem in free verse (without a rhyming scheme)? Understand and Dissect The Theme of The Poem. Examining the theme of a poem is a great method of analysis; the easiest way to break anything down is by understanding what it’s about. Read the poem again, this time aloud. - Know the time period the piece was written in. Is the poem a lyric? Determine the poem’s structure. Is it in regular stanzaic form (two or more equal clusters of lines) or irregular form? A poem does not affect its reader in quite the same way that a work of prose does. Why is there a repeated reference to the sea in Robinson Jeffers's poetry? The form of a poem (how it looks on the page) is often contributes to its meaning. 8. ‘Our journey together has come to an end.’ In this metaphor, the speaker is comparing a relationship with a journey. Look online and find a recording of the poem, if you can. 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