2. Agenda
• Essay #1
• Poetry Reading
• “There Is a Girl Inside”
• “The Fish”
• “A Black Rook in Rainy Weather”
• “Memories of West Street and Lepke”
• Close reading Application
3. Essay #1: Prompt Introduction
• In a thesis driven essay of 500 to 750 words, respond to one of the following
poems:
• “There’s a girl inside”
• “The Fish”
• Proceed on the assumptions of the New Criticism that (1) there is a difference between a good
poem and a bad poem, and (2) good poems have a “spirit” or life of their own because they
incorporate tensions that eventually are resolved into an “organic unity” or autonomous
organic whole. Following the New Critics, you should focus on the work itself; you should,
however, examine the literary allusions contained in the work as an important part of its total
meaning. You need only the primary text for this essay, but you may incorporate other texts
we have read thus far as additional support.
• An effective close reading will discuss HOW the poem communicates meaning (what poetic or
rhetorical strategies are used) as well as address WHY these strategies are used in this
particular way.
• One of the greatest challenges of a close reading is synthesis. Even as you divide the poem into
its composite elements, you will want to discuss how those elements come together to form a
whole. Your essay should reveal how the parts of the poem relate and form a totality. Ideally,
your paper should reveal some of the excitement that first inspired you to choose this poem.
• “A Black Rook in Rainy Weather”
• “Memories of West Street and Lepke”
4. In Groups based on
poem choice
• Discuss the poem you
have chosen to analyze;
consider the questions
on the next slide.
• List at least three ways
you might approach
your poem.
• Think about how one of
these approaches might
offer you insight about
a potential thesis.
5. Consider which of these questions help you understand
the poem
1. How does the work use imagery to develop its own symbols?
2. What is the quality of the work's organic unity In other words, does
how the work is put together reflect what it is?
3. How are the various parts of the work interconnected?
4. How do paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension work in the text?
5. How do these parts and their collective whole contribute to or not
contribute to the aesthetic quality of the work?
6. How does the author resolve apparent contradictions within the work?
7. What does the form of the work say about its content?
8. Is there a central or focal passage that can be said to sum up the
entirety of the work?
9. How do the rhythms and/or rhyme schemes of a poem contribute to
the meaning or effect of the piece?
