Explicating Poetry
What It Is and How to Do It

What is Explication?
• Analysis of a poem
• Describes meaning
• Describes relationships of words,
images, and other parts of a poem
• Connects poem’s plot and conflicts with
its structure

Preparing to Write
• Read poem silently, then read it aloud
• Think of it as a dramatic situation, audience
address
• Identify and describe the voice or voices
• Identify and describe conflicts and ideas
• Describe language used

The Design
• Identify who, what, when, where, why,
and how
• Form (sonnet? sestina? free verse?)
• Rhetoric
• Syntax
• Vocabulary

Patterns
• Rhetorical patterns
• Rhyme
• Sound patterns
• Visual patterns
• Rhythm and meter

Metrical Terms to Know
• Meter: recurrence of regular beats
• Foot: basic unit of meter
• Iambic (iamb): foot of poetry with unstressed syllable
followed by stressed
• Trochaic (trochee): foot of poetry with stressed syllable
followed by unstressed
• Anapestic (anapest): foot of poetry with two unstressed
syllables followed by one stressed
• Dactylic (dactyl): foot of poetry with one stressed
syllable followed by two stressed

Types of Meter
• Monometer: one beat
• Dimeter: two beats
• Trimeter: three beats
• Tetrameter: four beats
• Pentameter: five beats
• Hexameter: six beats

Scansion
• To “scan” a poem = to determine its
metrical pattern

Rhythm
• How a line is spoken, e.g. iambic
pentameter

Writing the Explication
• First paragraph: discuss large issues
(who, what, when, where, why, how),
conflicts, dramatic situation of speaker
• Next paragraphs discuss details of
form, rhetoric, syntax, vocabulary
• The conclusion: sound effects and
visual patterns to assert explanation

Tips
• Refer to the speaker of the poem as “the
speaker” or “the poet”; the speaker may
not necessarily be the poet
• Use present tense
• Avoid uses of the verb “to be”

Good Verbs
dramatizes asserts contrasts addresses
presents posits juxtaposes emphasizes
illustrates enacts suggests stresses
characterizes connects implies accentuates
underlines portrays shows enables