Poetry Guide: Reading for Understanding

Donna Reiss

Reading for Understanding a Poem
  1. Read the poem several times. Read the poem aloud at least once.
  2. Write your immediate impressions of and response to the poem. Do not be concerned about spelling or grammar or mechanics. Do not look up information about the poem until after you've noted your own impressions.
  3. Use a recent college dictionary and note the definitions of key words, especially those that are unfamiliar or that are used in unfamiliar ways.
    • Although you may think you know most of the words, you might be surprised at some of the additional denotations (dictionary definitions) and connotations (suggestions and implications, often context dependent).
    • For important or unusual words, consult specialized dictionaries and handbooks, for example, dictionaries of slang and regionalisms or the Oxford English Dictionary, which gives etymologies (histories of words). Record this information.
  4. Write your responses and answers to the following items. Again, do not be concerned about spelling or grammar or mechanics at this stage.
    1. Identify and take notes about the speaker and the situation.
      • What can you tell about the speaker's age, gender, occupation, interests, and attitudes?
      • What do you know about the time, place, and social-political-religious-cultural context?
      • What events are presented?
    2. Paraphrase the poem; in other words, rewrite it in your own words.
    3. What are the major images, both literal and figurative (non-literal)? Identify and explain the comparisions in the figures of speech, for example, metaphors, similes, personification, and metonymy.
    4. What repetitions and patterns are there? Include repeated sounds, words, phrases, and ideas.
    5. What shifts, contrasts, and contradictions are there? Look for transition signals like "but" and "or."
    6. What is the poem's tone (speaker's and author's attitude toward the subject and theme)?
    7. What specific elements contribute to sound, for example, rhyme and verse patterns, rhythm, and other sound effects such as alliteration?
      • What impact does the sound have on the meaning?
      • If the poem is a closed form such as a sonnet or villanelle, identify that form and consider how the form relates to the meaning.
    8. What themes does the poem suggest? Here identify the meanings suggested by the poem, looking in particular for comments, viewpoints, and attitudes. Themes in a poem may be overtly stated or may be subtly implied. You should express each theme as a complete sentence that generalizes about human nature or the human condition, for example, One theme of "Home Burial" by Robert Frost is that everyone's grief is private and that people often misunderstand each other's way of suffering for the loss of a loved one.

For more examples and information about poetry and other literary sites online, see Online Literary Resources. See also Poetry Reading Notes: Brief | Poetry Writing Notes: Brief | Poetry Guide: Writing a Formal Poetry Paper .

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Website developed 1996, copyright and modified ©January 9, 2007 by D. Reiss