We tend to think of poetry as the realm of the highest, deepest truths, eternal beauty, and sincere expressions. We look for deeper, hidden meanings. But the meanings aren’t hidden in poetry: they are right there before you, in the arrangement of the words on the page. You may find truth or beauty in those words, but whatever meanings you extract may come to you in surprising, unconventional, and even uncomfortable ways.
Read the poem slowly.
Read the poem aloud. Listen to the sounds and rhythm.
“Talk back” to the poem. Circle or underline difficult spots, marking words, arresting images, surprising turns of phrases. Write questions and comments in the margins. Draw arrows. Mark patterns of sound, image, meter, or anything else you notice. Make sure you understand the syntax of the poem. All poetry takes a certain freedom with the arrangement of words to construct emphasis, to fit the demands of rhythm or rhyme, or to defamiliarize ordinary language. If it doesn’t make immediate sense, there’s probably a reason.
Look up all the important words, even those you think you know, in a good college dictionary. Often a poet plays on secondary or root meanings of a specific word. These meanings may help you untangle one of the poem’s “knots.” (Note: use a dictionary liberally when reading poetry, but sparingly when writing about it.)
Consider the following questions:
1) Who? (speaker and addressee): It is customary to distinguish between the poet and the speaker (or persona) of a poem. The poet selects and arranges the words and images of the text, but the speaker is the person who says “I” in the poem. The speaker may be patently not the poet, in which case we can define the poem as a dramatic monologue. Other poems may invite you to identify the speaker with the poet. Is the speaker consistent throughout? reliable? sincere? Sometimes a poem addresses “you” directly and even intimately. Is the speaker addressing a friend or lover, speaking to herself, talking to the reader, or are all of these possible interpretations?
2) What? (content, central idea, or theme): What is the poem about—what is the incident, idea, or emotion it describes? Is there a subtext or implied subject other than the literal or explicit one?
3) How? (form, style, or technique): When reading poetry, it is often more useful to ask HOW a poem says something, than to ask WHAT it says. Poetic form includes features such as:
- diction (elevated, archaic, colloquial, informal, etc.);
- meter (pentameter, hexameter, free verse, etc.);
- rhyme (internal, end, masculine, feminine, etc.);
- stanza form, section breaks, and lineation;
- sound devices (alliteration, assonance, consonance, etc.);
- figurative language (metaphor, metonymy, symbol, image, etc.).
A poem may adopt a traditional form such as sonnet, elegy, ode, or ballad. These forms are always changing, but they rely on literary conventions and expectations that may affect the poems’ meanings. Look up these terms in a handbook such as the New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics to understand their rich history and ideological implications.
4) When, Where, Why? (context): The more you know about the historical and cultural period in which a poem was written, the more easily you will be able to formulate questions that will help you uncover—as well as set limits upon—its meanings. Start with the basics: the date of the poem and the period in which it was written. Does the poem reflect or diverge from the main styles and concerns of the period? Does it confirm the dominant ideology (values, attitudes, beliefs, etc.) of its time or present a critique of it? Could the poem refer, perhaps covertly, to an important historical event? Be careful with this kind of interpretation. Poems are rarely simple historical allegories; be alert to the presence of irony and ambiguity. Do use historical and biographical context to invalidate certain interpretations (Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” [1862] is probably not a celebration of lesbian sexuality, but could Langston Hughes’ “Harlem” [1951] be referring to the atomic bomb?).
5) With whom? (intertextuality): Many poems are very aware of themselves as poems participating in a literary tradition. Keep your eye and ears open to references, allusions, or imitations of other poems or poets, what we call “intertextuality.” The more poetry you read, the easier it becomes to recognize such connections. Ask yourself comparative questions. Find two poems that address the same theme. How does one poet’s vision, attitude, or form of presentation differ from another’s?
6) So what? (do I do now): When you begin to write about poetry—whether for a public folders conference, close-reading, or paper—chose a particularly thorny spot in a poem. Ask yourself questions about it. For example, you might consider why Wallace Stevens calls his poem “Anecdote of the Jar.” By looking up the word “anecdote,” you’ll discover that the current meaning is “a short, entertaining account of historical or biographical fact.” But the term comes from the Greek word for “unpublished; not + to give out.” The title thus both anthropomorphizes the jar (giving it human qualities) and anticipates the jar’s own refusal to “give of bird or bush.” Could the poem be as much about withholding truth, as giving it? Notice how in this example, a straightforward question about the definition of a word leads to an image pattern, which in turn suggests a thesis about the poem’s meaning.
Writing about Poetry
When you begin writing, get right to the point, avoiding ponderous universalisms or generalizations that can’t be proven. Research what other critics have had to say about the poem(s) or poet(s). Check out wealth of poetry web-sites and consult the MLA Index (available through CHAL, Indexes and Databases). Don’t be afraid to disagree with a critic; if a critic seems to have made exactly the argument you wanted to make, read the article again. Use it to refine or develop your own argument in order to say something new. Write in your own voice. Make sure each sentence belongs to this paper and no other.
*Portions of these guidlines were adapted or downright stolen from Judith Ryan, “How to Read a Poem,” A User’s Guide to German Cultural Studies, ed. Scott Denham, Irene Kacandes, and Jonathan Petropoulous (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press, 1997).
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