This document provides guidance on how to write an effective essay analyzing a poem. It recommends examining both the content and form of a poem, and considering how the two are related. The author suggests focusing the essay around a thesis about how the poet presents the given topic through specific poetic techniques like imagery, patterns, language choices and form. Several examples are provided of potential thesis statements. The document also gives tips on organizing observations and using evidence to support an argument.
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Assignmentassignment.docxDirections1) Read the following po.docxssuser562afc1
Assignment/assignment.docx
Directions
1) Read the following poems from the Album "The Art of (Reading) Poetry" (699-706 of Norton Anthology):Archibald Macleish, “Ars Poetica”
· Czeslaw Milosz, “Ars Poetcia?”
· Elizabeth Alexander, “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe”
· Marianne Moore, “Poetry”
· Julia Alvarez, “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen?”
· Billy Collins, “Introduction to Poetry”
2) Read the poems in the Albums “The Author’s Work as Context: Adrienne Rich” (page 911) and “Pat Mora: An Album” (page 971).
3) Select one poem from "The Art of (Reading) Poetry" and one poem from “The Author’s Work as Context: Adrienne Rich” or “Pat Mora: An Album." Choose two poems that you think will go well together.
4) Take notes about why you think the two poems go well together. In your notes, consider
· What does the poem from "The Art of (Reading) Poetry" say about the nature of poetry and the experience of reading it? What are its main ideas?
· How well does the poem from "The Art of (Reading) Poetry" reflect its own main ideas? In other words, is this poem special in the ways that it says poetry should be special? Does it have the characteristics of poetry that it says poetry should have? Is your experience of reading the poem what it says the experience of reading poetry should be? Why or why not?
· What are the main ideas expressed in the poem you chose by Rich or Mora? How well do the main ideas expressed in this poem compare with the topics, themes, or ideas the art-of-poetry poem suggests poetry should cover?
· How well does the poem by Rich or Mora that you chose reflect the ideas about poetry expressed in the poem you chose from "The Art of (Reading) Poetry"? In other words, does Rich's or Mora's poem have the characteristics that the poem about the art of poetry says poems should have? Is your experience of reading Mora's or Rich's poem what the art-of-poetry poem says the experience should be? Why or why not?
· How do the two poems compare? Do they use similar techniques to have effects on their readers? In other words, do they use similar diction, figures of speech, ways of characterizing their speakers, or rhythm? How are these techniques related to your experience of reading the poems and how well they fit the ideas about poetry in the art-of-poetry poem?
5) Develop a main point, or a thesis statement, for your paper. This thesis should focus on how the poem by Rich or Mora that you chose compares with the ideas about what poetry is like in the poem you chose from "The Art of (Reading) Poetry."
6) Develop supporting paragraphs that use analysis of specific quotations and details from the poem and explain those specific quotations and details. Review the lecture "The Essential Moves of Literary Analysis" within Topic 3: Writing about Literature. This lecture provides a paragraph structure that works well to keep your paragraphs focused and show how everything in the paragraph relates to your paragraph's main claim.
Be sure to review the course mater ...
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6. I’d never experienced love before but when I
did feel it, I was blown away! I went pale,
my legs went numb and nothing in my life
previously made any sense any more. I was
flushed, my vision went and it was as if I was
in the dark – I was dumb struck and I could
feel my heart pounding. Is love always so
painful? She didn’t seem to acknowledge
me but I can’t help myself – I’ll never be the
same again.
7. What has been sacrificed in the prose
version? Here is your starting point to
analysing and appreciating the craft of
poetry.
If you can understand how it works and why
a writer might choose verse, you can write
intelligently about it.
8. I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale.
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked, what could I ail?
My life and all seemed turned to clay.
I’d never experienced love before but when I did feel
it, I was blown away! I went pale, my legs went
numb and nothing in my life previously made any
sense any more.
9. How do images, rhythms, patterns,
and aural devices modify or extend
the prose meaning of the poem?
10. Then…
•Examine the content
•Examine the form
And then ask yourself…
‘What is the relationship between
the content of this poem and its
form’?
11. A key discriminator between the middling
and top grade candidates is that the best
students write intelligently about this
relationship.
Remember champagne flutes, brandy
tumblers and shot glasses?!
12. Some ways to organize your observations:
Imagery
Patterns & shifts
Language choices
Aural poetic devices
Mood/tone
Narrative perspective
And of course form / structure
(there are others!)
13. Ask yourself "What is the total effect of all
the little things I've been noticing?"
What do the parts of the poem cooperate to
tell me about the poet’s treatment of the
topic?
14. Don't let your paper turn into a laundry list of
observations – find synthesis statements.
Make sure that no one could title your essay
"Some things I liked (or simply noticed) about
this poem."
This is a sure recipe for a ‘C’ grade at best!
15. Furthermore there are
no marks for ‘gushing’
or making unfounded
statements about a
poem’s greatness!!
Don’t be him!
16. It is likely that you will be given a topic or
theme and will be asked how the poet presents
this within their poem.
Find 3 or 4 ways in which the poet has done this
and then consider the combined effect of these
choices.
This will give you your THESIS statement.
17. A poetry essay, then, no matter what the task,
invites you to investigate these underlying
questions while addressing the named topic…
18. Given that the writer could just as easily have
written their thoughts on this topic in prose,
why have they elected to do so in verse?
What has this combination of form and content
achieved in addition to the prose alternative
and how has the poet used the toolbox of
poetic devices to reflect and comment on the
given subject?
19. Examine the way in which marriage is
presented in Smith’s ‘Wedlock Blues’
20. Smith conveys a bitter message about his
experience of marriage. The poet’s use of
bleak metaphor, anaphora, and the
disrupted rhyme scheme and syllable
structure in the poem allow him to reveal
his deepest and darkest thoughts about
the social institution of matrimony.
21. How does Jones present love in
‘The Ghost of a Wedding Cake’?
22. Jones here presents a poem which
examines his narrator’s conflicting
psychological thoughts about the
experience of romantic love. The poet’s
use of free verse, pastoral imagery, and
caesura combine to reflect his character’s
inner struggle to resolve the vulnerability
and confusion he feels alongside an
obvious passion and commitment to his
‘tender’ and ‘gentle love’.
23. Then be sure that every new paragraph
thereafter (you should have at least 3 or 4!)
presents a topic sentence which takes one of
these observed details and develops it with
close embedded quotation in order to further
your argument about the treatment of the
given topic…
24. The poem makes good use of a series of
brooding metaphors which reinforce the
narrator’s pessimistic view of marriage. In the
2nd stanza, the reference to a ‘golden barbed
wire band’ takes the wedding ring, a traditional
symbol of matrimony, and subverts it; the
plosive alliteration reinforcing the tension
already established…
25. Once you have presented this evidenced
argument which remains topic focused
throughout, you should conclude in a way that
does more than just repeat the ground you
have just covered as a list.
(a sure fire way of throwing away marks with
the finishing line in sight!)
26. Try instead to have something up your sleeve to
wow the examiner so that they are left in no
doubt that you are deserving of the top band.
You could broaden your argument…
27. There is no doubt then that for Smith, marriage
is a source of torment and disillusionment and
yet a glimmer of hope remains; he is not quite
willing to abandon his faith in the redemptive
promise of a shared life and this is perhaps why
in another poem from the same period ‘Heart
felt’, he concludes that ‘Love is what remains
when all is done’.
28. Or you could reinforce that you are offering a
personal response (AO4):
‘To conclude, while I cannot align myself with
Jones’ position on romantic love as a parasitic
and ultimately destructive force, I do find this
poem to be both striking and thought
provoking. Arguably, while he fails to woo his
lover, he does successfully seduce his reader
and in this sense the poem is successful!’