How to Analyze a Poem in 10 Easy Steps

**Northie** · 14-02-2010, 04:35 PM

Okay, so you have to analyze a poem. First, let’s change the word analyze and make it less scary. We prefer the word approach because a poem can have different meanings for different readers.

1) Read through at least twice. You will have to read a poem multiple times before even attempting to approach it for deeper meanings. Give yourself a chance to thoroughly and fully experience the poem.

2) Is there a title? Don’t forget to take this into consideration. Readers often skip over a poem’s title, which may contain important clues for understanding the piece. Often the title is an introduction that can guide you; for example, Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son” immediately lets you know who the speaker of the poem is and to whom she is speaking.

3) Stay calm! If there are any unfamiliar words or even a few foreign terms, don’t panic and don’t obsess. On your first read through, just let them go and try instead to focus on the larger meaning of the poem. On the second and subsequent passes, you should then look up those troublesome words or anything else that is problematic for you.

4) Read it aloud. Yes. You must do this. Poems are meant to be heard. Often you will find that places in the poem that gave you trouble on the page suddenly make sense when read out loud. You may feel silly at first, but soon you’ll be comfortable. (Cats and dogs, by the way, make particularly good audiences...though cats tend to be more critical and may leave at a pivotal point in your performance.) Read in your normal voice. Don’t try to sound like Maya Angelou. Unless you are Maya Angelou.

5) Pay attention to punctuation. Most poems use punctuation to help guide the voice of its reader. You need to pay attention because the end of a line is frequently not the end of a sentence. Consider these lines from Robert Frost’s “Birches”:

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging in them.

If you stop reading or pause at the end of the first line, it will sound broken and unnatural. If you read smoothly through, pausing briefly at the comma and making a full stop at the period, the poem will have its proper conversational tone.

6) Try paraphrasing. It may be best for you to write in your own words what the poet is saying in each line of the poem. As you work through it, you’ll see which areas you need to concentrate on. But again, avoid the notion that there is “one true meaning.”

7) Who is the speaker? Remember not to confuse the poet with the “speaker” of the poem. More often than not, the speaker is a character, just like in a novel or a play. Determining who the speaker is will help you approach the work more easily.

8) Be open to interpretation. Give it a chance. For example, William Carlos Williams’ poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” is often dismissed as cryptic, confusing, and ultimately unknowable. But being open to the poet’s intentions can lead you to some interesting ideas and questions (in this case, what is important to life?).

9) There are no useless words. Poets select each and every word carefully. None should be dismissed. Images and symbols all have a purpose in the overall meaning of the poem.

10) Don’t expect a definitive reading. Many poems are intentionally open-ended and refuse to resolve their internal tensions. While it is desirable to understand what a poem is saying, remember that there are approaches and interpretations other than your own.enotes ws

DIFFERENT WAYS TO ANALYSE A POEM – REFLECTING THE HISTORY OF LITERARY CRITICISM

TEXT-CENTRED CRITICISM

1. Read the poem aloud. Try to hear the sounds in your head.
2. Underline the key words, phrases, images.
3. Analyse sentence structure – what effect does it have? Punctuation?
4. What type of figurative language is being used – metaphor, simile, personification, onomatopoeia, anthropomorphism, oxymoron ("A terrible beauty is born"), juxtaposition, extended metaphor.
5. Is poet appealing to our senses directly – touch, sight, smell?
6. Are devices such as repetition, alliteration, and assonance being used? What is their effect?
7. Are there any symbols used?
8. What form is the poem in?
9. Analyse the tone of the poem. How does the speaker feel toward the subject?
10. What is the mood of the poem? How do you feel as you read it?

READER-CENTRED CRITICISM

1. Write down the title of the poem you are about to read. Write down any associations you make with that title. Connotations?
2. What experiences have you had that can help inform the meaning of this poem?
3. How do you feel about what you are reading?
4. What is the poem saying about your life?
5. In what way could this poem be a poem about you or someone you know?
6. Can you relate this to other texts you have read or to personal anecdotes?
7. Based on your own experiences decide what you think this poem is about.

STRUCTURALISM

1. Carve up the text into its constituent parts.
2. Who is the subject – the person who is the focus of the narrative?
3. Who is the object – the person or thing or goal that defines the subjects’ task?
4. Who or what is the donor – the person or thing that provides materials or information crucial to the subject's success?
5. Who is the receiver – the person who receives the donor’s gift or advice?
6. Who or what is the helper, which accompanies and assists the subject?
7. Who or what – thing, person or place – which stands in the way of the subject and must be overcome?
8. Which ideology is present here?
9. Are there any patterns, which fit the poetry genre? Is there any variation in this?

POST-STRUCTURALISM / DECONSTRUCTIONISM

1. What do you feel is the dominant reading of the poem?
2. What has influenced the ideology of the poem – gender, class, ethnicity, and power?
3. What are the assumptions and values regarding the above in this poem?
4. Which binary oppositions are present?
5. What do these indicate about the speaker and the agenda of the poet?
6. Which ‘myths’ does it challenge, about people or ideas or society?
7. How is power distributed in this text?

* stereotyping – which characters are assigned powerful, dominant characteristics?
* Are they made to appear natural?
* marginalisation – which characters are distanced from the main action, socially or psychologically?
* Authority control – to what extent is the ruling power exerting an influence over the writing and the reading of the text?Catholic forum

**Northie** · 14-02-2010, 04:55 PM

Poetry can be a tiresome set of words when analyzing. The elements of analyzing poetry listed below will help you identify the meaning through its parts and give a sense of interpreting a poem. Since each poem is unique, there is no one way of going about this. Nonetheless, the general advice goes like this:
Interpreting poetry tips

1. Read the title
2. Read the poem. Look for the setting, topic and voice.
3. Divide the poem into parts: intro, rising action, climax, declining action, conclusion.
4. What tone does the poem have? Pay close attention to intonation, nuance and words used.

Now that the general structure and relationship of the poem is revealed, it's time to look at the elements of analysis: genre, voice, thesis, structure, setting, imagery, key statements, sound, language use, allusion, qualities that evoke the reader, historical/cultural, ideology.

Genre
What type of poem is it? Is it a cinquain, haiku, lyric, narrative, elegy, sonnet, epic, epistle? Different genres have separate attributes, purposes and emphases.
Voice
Who is the speaker? What point of view is the speaker? Is the speaker involved in the action or reflection of the poem? What perspective (social, intellectual, political) does the speaker show? The voice and perspective of the speaker tells of what world the poem is in.
Thesis
What is the poem about? What are the obvious and less obvious conflicts? What are the key statements and relationships of the poem? The thesis gives an indication of what tone the poem is written in: historical, social, emotional.
Structure
What is the poems 'formal structure' (number of meters, stanzas, rhyme scheme)? What is the 'thematic structure' (the plot)?
Setting
What type of 'world' is the poem set in? The time, place -- is it concrete, tonal, connotative, symbolic, allegorical?
Imagery
What images does the poem use; the physical setting or metaphors used?
Key statements
What direct or indirect statements are made – repetition, actions, alliteration?
Sound
How does the sound, both rhythm and rhyme (if applicable), contribute to the poem.
Language use
What kind of words are used? Do the words have double meanings? What about connotations, puns or ambiguities?
Allusion
Does the poem have a meaning from another work?
Qualities that evoke the reader
What sort of learning or experience does the poem give its reader?
Ideology
What are the values and basic ideals of the world that are expressed?

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A description of how to read a poem critically, followed by a sample reading of Dorothy Parker's 'Resume'.

EXAMPLE OF A POETIC DISCUSSION

I have recently discovered Dorothy Parker, a modern poetess with a deliciously satirical outlook on life (judging from her work). For discussion purposes I have chosen 'Resume', for both its brevity and its poetic devices.

Read this poem through once:

Resume (by Dorothy Parker)

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren't lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

My immediate reaction upon a first reading of the poem was to laugh. If I examine my reasons for laughing, it seems to lie in the contrast between the last line and what precedes it. There seems to be a futilistic view of suicide in the poem.

The subject-matter of the poem is different forms of suicide and problems associated with them. It hurts to cut your wrists, drowning is unpleasantly wet, some ways of commiting suicide fail easily or are difficult to obtain. So in view of the difficulty of exiting life, it is easier to give up and put up with the difficulty involved in living in the first place.

Upon the second reading of the poem, I realize that I not only found the contrast amusing, but also the truth of it. The complications associated with suicide are so numerous. The irony is that life may be rather less painful than death, even though the opposite is generally assumed to be true. Staying where you are is the easiest option.

The title of the poem is puzzling. A resume is normally something you draw up to give information about yourself. In the poem 'resume' could be the resume of the speaker, who might have experimented with suicide. The conclusion of the experiments is drawn in the last line. It might also merely be a 'resume' of the nature of suicide and life itself. The resume in this case gives information about the subject matter: suicide. So the title might refer to the speaker as a person or the suject of the poem as an idea.

There are seven images in the poem: razors, rivers, acids, drugs, guns, nooses and gas. These are all ways of commiting suicide. All these images can therefore be metaphors not only of death, but also of pain. The metaphors are especially of pain, since the implication is that suicide is painful. Therefore you are likely to abort the attempt before achieving the goal of death.

Concerning structure, the poem consists of two sentences. Each sentence spans over four lines of the poem. The first ssentence concerns suicide attempts that are physically uncomfortable. The second seems a little more geared towards suicide attempts that fail in some way and therefore in failing to give you death, force you to the conclusion, which is life.

Every second line rhymes and all rhyming words are verbs connected to why suicide attempts might fail. In the second sentence 'give' in line 6 and 'live' in line 8 rhyme. This is significant, because the noose that gives, and therefore the suicide that fails and forces life, combines with all the other suicide references in the poem. In this way, all the suicide attempts rather point to living than to dying.

The rhyme causes the rhythm. The poem is very rhythmic and almost up-beat. This contrasts strongly with the grim subject-matter. Perhaps this says something about the importance of laughter in this world. The poem is also very short. This may signify that life is short. Therefore attempting suicide is also not a very worthy option. Waiting to die is less painful and also not very long.

The theme, in the light of the above, concerns how grim modern life has become. The poet suggests antidotes to this grimness. One of the suggested antidotes is suicide, but this is so infected with difficulties that the difficulty of life in view of its brevity seems small by comparison. The ultimate antidote for depression and grimness is laughter. Laugh at suicide, laugh at life, because you have been born and you have to cope with what comes your way regardless.

The poem teaches me the lesson to take life less seriously. As adults we have all forgotten our natural childlike ability to laugh and have fun. It is okay to laugh at life and pain. That is what keeps us healthy. Perhaps that is also what keeps us from suicide and giving up altogether. The poem advises to rather give up on death and live, than give up on life. Laughter is the easiest and most pleasant way out. It is best to enjoy the brief years we have here, rather than hurt ourselves even more by trying to end it prematurely.

READ POETRY

To read poetry critically, rather than just on the surface, can be a very rewarding experience. I hope that the above has proved this.Essortment ws