POETRY the best words in the best order.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Poetry Explication: Respond to assigned poems in the following manner:

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Pay attention to the title, before you read the poem and after, what of interest emerges? Read the poem several times. Outloud at least one time, so your ear can hear it. Use a dictionary- poets choose words purposely; look up words you dont know. Characterize the speaker. Consider who the intended audience is. Paraphrase the poem, by units of meaning, to determine what is happening in the poem (the situation) and when and where it takes place (the setting). Look at the structure: how many stanzas or is it continuous (is it a fixed form- like a sonnet), lines in each stanza, use of enjambment and/or caesura, punctuation in general, changes in line or stanza length, the layout of the poem on the page. How does the structure affect the central idea/purpose of the poem? Read the poem for tone*. Does the tone shift in the poem? (Look for signal words-but, yet; punctuation-dashes, colons.) If so, where and why?

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*In poetry the tone can be the attitude the poet or speaker has toward the subject of the poem or sometimes the reader. Rarer, but possible, tone can be the attitude the poet has toward the speaker.
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Look for irony. This includes oxymoron, paradox, and understatement and overstatement.

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Mark your poem for imagery: visual, tactile, and auditory. Look for patterns (3 or more images on one subject, also consider if they are positive or negative). When you color-

mark, all nature imagery could be marked green. You can design your color-marking to fit your needs. 9. Mark your poem for poetic/language features: Figurative Language: metaphors, similes, (irony- paradox, overstatement, understatement, oxymoron), symbols, personification, metonomy, synecdoche, apostrophe Allusion Diction- denotation ; connotation Sound devices: alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, rhyme, rhythm Remember explication is your first step toward your goal of doing a written or oral commentary. Your goal is to not just identify poetic devices and language features but to always explore how these devices contribute to the purpose and the meaning of the poem. Write on a separate sheet of paper:

Contextualize the poem. What type of poem is it? How does it fit the poets style, subject matter, etc.? Based on the information youve acquired, determine the poems central idea/purpose. Based on your explication, how is this central idea achieved? In other words, how do the structure and poetic features, reveal and emphasize the poets purpose/ central idea?