Poem Analysis Essay Assignment

For this assignment, you will use the same poem that you used for the Recitation Project. Write an essay explaining the following two things:

1) what the poem means (on the surface but also think deeply about this idea)

2) how the form of the poem helps to create that meaning beyond just the content (here you can talk about structure, rhyme, repetition, sound, emotion, pacing, figurative language, etc. -- anything that helps you talk about the meaning being enhanced by the form)

Your essay should have an introduction with a thesis, one or more body paragraphs about meaning, one or more body paragraphs about form, and a conclusion.

Include at least three direct quotes from the poem.

The first draft is due on your blogs by midnight Friday, May 20 (600 words minimum), and the revised draft will be due the following week.

Prose vs. Poetry

Poetry and Prose:

Poetry noun

1. the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.
2. literary work in metrical form; verse.

Prose

noun

1. the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse.
2. matter-of-fact, commonplace, or dull expression, quality, discourse, etc.

What’s the Difference? Nearly all writing shares the goal of communicating a message to an audience, but how that message is communicated can differ greatly. The divisions between poetry and prose aren’t clear-cut, but here are some generally accepted differences.

Prose

 Most everyday writing is in prose form.

The language of prose is typically straightforward without much decoration. Ideas are contained in sentences that are arranged into paragraphs.

There are no line breaks. Sentences run to the right margin.

The first word of each sentence is capitalized.

Prose looks like large blocks of words.

Poetry

Poetry is typically reserved for expressing something special in an artistic way.

The language of poetry tends to be more expressive or decorated, with comparisons, rhyme, and rhythm contributing to a different sound and feel. Ideas are contained in lines that may or may not be sentences.

Lines are arranged in stanzas.

Poetry uses line breaks for various reasons—to follow a formatted rhythm or to emphasize an idea.

Lines can run extremely long or be as short as one word or letter.

Traditionally, the first letter of every line is capitalized, but many modern poets choose not to follow this rule strictly.

The shape of poetry can vary depending on line length and the intent of the poem.

Found poems

Here is the definition of Found Poetry from poets.org:

Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.

A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.

Here is an example:

Sample Found Poem 

Prose Selections from Chang-rae Lee’s “Coming Home, Again” 

From that day, my mother prepared a certain meal to welcome me home. It was always the same. Even as I rode the school’s shuttle bus from Exeter to Logan airport, I could already see the exact arrangement of my mother’s table. I knew that we would eat in the kitchen, the table brimming with plates. There was the kalbi, of course, broiled or grilled depending on the season. Leaf lettuce, to wrap the meat with. Bowls of garlicky clam broth with miso and tofu and fresh spinach. Shavings of cod dusted in flour and then dipped in egg wash and fried. Glass noodles with onions and shiitake. Scallion-and-hot-pepper pancakes. Chilled steamed shrimp. Seasoned salads of bean sprouts, spinach, and white radish. Crispy squares of seaweed. Steamed rice with barley and red beans. Homemade kimchi. It was all there—the old flavors I knew, the beautiful salt, the sweet, the excellent taste. (p. 5) ...................

 I wish I had paid more attention. After her death, when my father and I were the only ones left in the house, drifting through the rooms like ghosts, I sometimes tried to make that meal for him. Though it was too much for two, I made each dish anyway, taking as much care as I could. But nothing turned out quite right—not the color, not the smell. At the table, neither of us said much of anything. And we had to eat the food for days. (p. 6) 

 Found Poem Based on the Prose Selection 

My mother prepared
A certain meal
To welcome me home.
We would eat in the kitchen
Table brimming
Kalbi, leaf lettuce to wrap the meat
Garlicky clam broth with miso and tofu and fresh spinach
Shavings of cod
Scallion and pepper pancakes
Chilled steamed shrimp
Steamed rice. The old flavors I knew
Beautiful, salt, sweet, excellent.
I wish I had paid more attention.

Shape poems can be simple and follow a different form

Poem Set 2

Swan and Shadow by John Hollander

Poetry

by Nikki Giovanni

poetry is motion graceful
as a fawn
gentle as a teardrop
strong like the eye
finding peace in a crowded room

we poets tend to think
our words are golden
though emotion speaks too
loudly to be defined
by silence

sometimes after midnight or just before
the dawn
we sit typewriter in hand
pulling loneliness around us
forgetting our lovers or children
who are sleeping
ignoring the weary wariness
of our own logic
to compose a poem
no one understands it
it never says "love me" for poets are
beyond love
it never says "accept me" for poems seek not
acceptance but controversy
it only says "i am" and therefore
i concede that you are too

a poem is pure energy
horizontally contained
between the mind
of the poet and the ear of the reader
if it does not sing discard the ear
for poetry is song
if it does not delight discard
the heart for poetry is joy
if it does not inform then close
off the brain for it is dead
if it cannot heed the insistent message
that life is precious

which is all we poets
wrapped in our loneliness
are trying to say

This Is Just To Say

William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

The Red Wheelbarrow

Related Poem Content Details

BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

so much depends 

upon 

a red wheel 

barrow 

glazed with rain 

water 

beside the white 

chickens

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)

Related Poem Content Details

BY EMILY DICKINSON

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - 

That perches in the soul - 

And sings the tune without the words - 

And never stops - at all - 

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - 

And sore must be the storm - 

That could abash the little Bird 

That kept so many warm - 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - 

And on the strangest Sea - 

Yet - never - in Extremity, 

It asked a crumb - of me.

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)

Blood

Related Poem Content Details

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

“A true Arab knows how to catch a fly in his hands,” 

my father would say. And he’d prove it, 

cupping the buzzer instantly 

while the host with the swatter stared. 

In the spring our palms peeled like snakes. 

True Arabs believed watermelon could heal fifty ways. 

I changed these to fit the occasion. 

Years before, a girl knocked, 

wanted to see the Arab. 

I said we didn’t have one. 

After that, my father told me who he was, 

“Shihab”—“shooting star”— 

a good name, borrowed from the sky. 

Once I said, “When we die, we give it back?” 

He said that’s what a true Arab would say. 

Today the headlines clot in my blood. 

A little Palestinian dangles a truck on the front page. 

Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root 

is too big for us. What flag can we wave? 

I wave the flag of stone and seed, 

table mat stitched in blue. 

I call my father, we talk around the news. 

It is too much for him, 

neither of his two languages can reach it. 

I drive into the country to find sheep, cows, 

to plead with the air: 

Who calls anyone civilized? 

Where can the crying heart graze? 

What does a true Arab do now? 

Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance

Check out this link explaining three important poetic terms:

http://www.writingrhymeandmeter.com/rhyme/208-consonance-assonance-alliteration/