A Guide to Reading and Interpreting Poetry
Poetry is highly compressed language, but still uses
punctuation and complete sentences, as well as sound and
rhythm. Poets work to strip out all the extemporaneous
words writers usually include as glue between the essential
words and that give us context about meaning. While the
language’s compression may make the poem seem difficult
to understand, most poems are, in the end, interpretable.
It’s best to approach a poem systematically in an academic
reading. Treat the poem as if it is a puzzle to be sussed out,
or travel luggage waiting to be unpacked. While one may
read poetry outside of school simply for pleasure, in
academia, we are attempting to construct defendable
interpretations, which means we are attempting to agree
as a community on the most complete meaning of the
poem being read and discussed.
The most beloved and enduring poetry does not abandon
literal meaning in its focus on figurative language, sound
rhythm and imagery. The most successful poems actually
blend somehow both literal and figurative meaning in a
way that is difficult to explain but resonates with us
nonetheless—it’s actually the tension between the two that
builds meaning.
Let’s follow the system listed here to annotate and
interpret a poem’s most likely meaning.
When you read and understand a poem,
comprehending its rich and formal
meanings, then you master chaos a little.
- Stephen Spender
Reading the Poem
1. Read the poem through 1-3 times and see how much of
the author’s meaning you can immediately grasp. Ask
yourself:
Who is speaking?
Who is the audience?
What is the topic?
Where and when is the action taking place?
What is motivating the speaker?
2. Then, go back through the poem, line by line. Define all
the images and symbols, if necessary referring to outside
reference works or to other poems by the same author.
3. If you are still having difficulty understanding the
poem, consider “translating” each line into prose. Or
substitute simpler words for the more difficult ones. You
may need a dictionary.
4. When you understand all the basic words and ideas in
the poem, reread the poem a few more times and pull it all
back together again.
Interpreting the Poem
1. Look at the title—it’s often as important as any line.
2. Follow the punctuation like a road map.
3. Look for symbols, allusions and other clues to meaning.
4. Identify tone (based on diction) and any ambiguities.
5. Read first for literal meaning, and then for
metaphorical meaning.
6. Look for recurring words, ideas, sounds.
7. Pay close attention to the closing lines.
Prose consists of words in their best order.
Poetry consists of the best words in the best order.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Annotating the Poem
Annotating literature means taking careful, extensive
notes on any important plot or character clues, themes,
and use of literary devices (rhyme, allusion, alliteration,
irony, metaphor, etc.), as well as your personal responses
to the work—noting the author’s tone, intended audience,
speaker, etc.—and how you react or think about it.
In the analysis of a poem, remember to consider “who is
speaking to whom,” “when and where is the poem taking
place,” and “what is topic being discussed,” and “what is
the primary purpose—to persuade, to instruct, to inform,
to reflect, to discover, and/or to entertain?”
The only really difficult thing about a
poem is the critic’s explanation of it.
- Frank Moore Colby
Writing the Literary Explication/Analysis
When writing an explication paper, we essentially write
out a detailed interpretation of a work of literature,
particularly of shorter work like poetry. This type of essay
looks at all aspects of a poem—its surface meaning, as well
as its underlying tone and themes, any and all use of
literary devices and their influence on the poem. We will
be writing many timed poetry analysis papers during the
year. To write with expertise, you’ll need to know the
following terms. Define them in your journal.
General Vocabulary (setting, character, tone, diction,
narrative, pacing, dialogue, monologue, point-of-view,
Verse (poem, couplet, epiphany, invocation, mimesis, muse,
octave, persona, poetic license, pun)
Meter (beat, caesura, enjambment, foot, iambic pentameter,
refrain, stanza)
Rhyme (alliteration, assonance, consonance, euphony,
cacaphony, eye-rhyme, half-rhyme, internal rhyme, masculine
rhyme, feminine rhyme, true rhyme)
Figurative language (allegory, allusion, ambiguity, anaphora,
apostrophe, conceit, connotation, denotation, contrast, dead
metaphor, dramatic irony, sophoclean irony, tragic irony,
extended metaphor, hyperbole, implicit or submerged metaphor,
image, invocation, irony, cosmic irony, litotes, metaphor,
metonymy, mixed metaphor, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, pathetic
fallacy, parallelism, personification, romantic irony, sarcasm,
simile, socratic irony, symbolism, synecdoche, synaesthesia,
transferred epithet, trope, verbal irony)
Types of Poems (ballad, blank verse, burlesque, didactic,
dramatic monologue, elegy, emblematic, epic, epigram, epitaph,
eulogy, free verse, haiku, limerick, lyric, ode, prose poems,
sonnet, villanelle)
Poetry is the renewal of words, setting them free,
and that’s what a poet is doing: loosening the words.
- Robert Frost
How to Get Good at Reading Poems
Every week, you should read, analyze and annotate several
poems. Just set aside 15-20 minutes and do it, generally
when you have a few moments of silence, free from
distraction. Maybe in the mornings if you’re an early riser,
or at night, at the end of the day before you go to bed (but
not as you’re falling asleep, obviously). By the end of the
year, you’ll have read and comprehended many poems.
Sources for good poems:
Poetry Foundation
Poetry Out Loud
Poets.org
The challenges:
1. Reading and comprehending a poem requires
focus, mindfulness. This is not part of
everyday life anymore for most of us. Find a
quiet place to read and think without
distractions. (Alternatively, you may attend
the bag lunch sessions in Ms. Hamill’s room
where 1-2 of the poems will be addressed in a
15-20 minute session.)
2. Vocabulary. Texting, visual media and the
internet have seriously shrunk the size of
people’s vocabulary. Poetry exults language.
Only reading can develop vocabulary. You
may need to look up the meaning of words.
Be prepared to do it. In prose, you can figure
out words based on context, in poetry, that’s
not usually an option. Have a bound or online
dictionary at hand when you read and
annotate each poem.
3. Outside knowledge and experience. If you
spend most of your down time texting
friends, playing video games and posting
selfies on Instagram, your range of knowledge
about the world will be much leaner and
slighter than if you read the news every day,
have political debates over the dinner table
with actual adults in your household, and
have some education and training in a
religion (i.e. you went to Sunday School).
Literature is about life, about the human
experience. There is no topic that has not
been explored in depth: love, family, religion,
politics, science, history, human rights, sex,
food, sleep, phobias, pets, stubbed toes,
etc…you get the idea. No topic is too great or
too small. If your own wealth of ideas fits into
a child’s piggy bank, your ability to interpret
the treasury of literature will also be poor and
will negatively impact your ability to think
intelligently about each poem. Read or listen
to the news every day (NPR has morning and
afternoon radio broadcasts; the major
networks are on in the morning and evening
around mealtime; the internet is 24-7). You
have no excuse. Stick with reputable news
organizations (see Ms. Hamill’s handout on
biased news sources). Avoid fake news or
heavily biased-news (on both ends). These
sources might break a story first, but if it’s
valid, it’ll get picked up and fact-checked by
the mainstream media.
4. Recording your responses. Use color marking
and heavy marginalia. Below is an example of
what your annotated poems should look like
in order to get your full credit (10 points per
poem).
Dover Beach title = setting
by Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair moon = romance
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, contrast
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. G-alliteration
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Who is speaking?
Only, from the long line of spray to whom?
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, imagery
Listen! you hear the grating roar auditory image
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin, sound imitates sense
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in. time motif
Sophocles long ago Greek allusion, tragedy
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we contrast we/speaker/Sophocles
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith metaphor
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. simile
But now I only hear contrast--past, present
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath change in mood, setting
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world. N-alliteration
Ah, love, let us be true Tone, audience
To one another! for the world, which seems key word
To lie before us like a land of dreams, simile
So various, so beautiful, so new, repetition
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain change in we context
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. Repeats from first line
Tone seems sad, reflective, philosophical. A love poem though, in which
the speaker sees the harshness of the world and seeks his companion’s
love as a balm to the pain of the world–human connection.
Sets of questions to ask that will help you access
the meaning of a poem and talk/write about it:
Set #1
The following questions will direct you towards developing an
analysis of a poem. Not all the questions apply to all poems,
but many will apply to many poems.
In the Nature of Poetry, Donald Stauffer states that poetry is
exact, intense, significant, concrete, complex, rhythmical, and
formal.
Whenever possible, always read a poem aloud, softly, then
loudly, then with the volume and tone that reflect your
perception of the poem’s effect.
1. What does the title state literally and what does it
imply?
2. Who is the speaker, the author or the persona or
character created by the author?
3. What is the setting in time and space?
4. What images does the poet create?
5. How does the poet arouse the reader’s five senses
(sight, sound, taste, touch, smell)?
6. Where is the central, charged image of the poem?
7. Where does the poet use figures of speech?
8. Does irony—verbal, situational, or dramatic—have a
function in the poem?
9. Is paradox a device used in the poem?
10. Does the poet employ symbolism?
11. Does the poet make use of objective correlatives
(subjective suggested by an object?)
12. How does sound echo sense?
13. Why does the poet use alliteration?
14. Why does the poet employ the devise of allusion
(historical, literary, religious, mythological?)
15. Does the poet employ the device of personification?
16. What is the effect of the poet’s use of contrast and/or
comparison of elements in the poem?
17. Does the poet set up analogies and parallels?
18. Where does the poet use techniques for emphasis
(punctuation, enjambment, caesura and line-
endings)?
19. Are there refrains in the poem (patterned repetition of
phrases and lines)?
20. Is the poem written in bank verse or free verse?
21. Of what type is the poem and example: lyrical, ode,
amatory, pastoral, devotional, metaphysical,
allegorical, symbolic, elegiac, introspective,
meditative, romantic, satirical, narrative, dramatic
monolog or other)?
22. Is the poet’s approach generally subjective or
objective?
23. What are key words or phrases in the poem?
24. How does the poet make use of denotation and
connotation in the handling of diction (word choice)?
25. What is the tone of the poem?
26. What is the poet’s attitude toward the elements in the
poem?
27. Is the poet deliberately employing the technique of
ambiguity?
28. Does the poet make use of the technique of
understatement (implication) or overstatement
(hyperbole)?
29. How does the poet use external context and internal
context to create implications?
30. What thematic elements are developed (love, time,
mutability, seize the day)?
Set #2
1. What is your response to the poem on first reading?
Did parts of it please you, displease you, shock you,
puzzle you? Does your investigation into word
meanings change or modify your response?
2. Speaker and Tone: Who is the speaker (age, sex,
personality, frame of mind, tone of voice)? Is the
speaker defined fairly precisely or is the speaker
simply a voice meditating. Does the speaker seem fully
aware of what he or she is saying, or does the speaker
unconsciously reveal his or her personality and values.
What is your attitude toward this speaker?
3. Audience: To whom is the speaker speaking? What is
the situation, including time and place? Sometimes it’s
to someone specific, sometimes it’s just the reader
who “overhears” the speaker.
4. Consider the structure of the poem. Does it proceed
in a straightforward manner, or at some point, does
the speaker reverse course, alter tone or perception?
What do you make of the shift? Is the poem in
sections? Compare and contrast those sections—do
they shift tone, or group in rhymes? Are they tidy little
stanzas, or do the ideas, patterns overflow into the
next set of lines?
a. Repetitive—common in lyrics, where a single
state of mind is repeated throughout the poem.
b. Narrative—common in lyrics in which there is a
sense of advance that comes to an end.
c. Logical—A poem in which the speaker sets up
an argument and presents evidence. Common
devices in logically structured poems: verbal
irony usually presented via understatement,
litotes, overstatement, hyperbole, paradox.
5. What is the poem about? Is it chiefly psychological or
philosophical? Is the theme stated explicitly (directly)
or implicitly? State the theme into a sentence. What is
lost by reducing the poem to a statement of theme?
6. How do you characterize the language? Is it colloquial
slang, public speech, especially rich in figurative
devices, elevated? Do certain words have rich and
relevant associations to other words? Do they define
the speaker or the theme or both? What is literal’ what
is figurative?
7. What role does sound play in the poem? Consider
alliteration, assonance, consonance, cacophony,
rhyme, repetition. If there are off-rhymes (like home
and come), what effect do they have on you? Do they
add a note of tentativeness or uncertainty? If there are
unexpected stresses or pauses, what do they represent
about the speaker? What is the effect on you?
Set #3
1. Does the poem imply a story of some sort, or a report
of an event, say a love story, or is it a response to
nature or some other human condition? If it is a story,
what is the beginning, middle, and end?
2. Is there a shift in tone at any point? IS the change
communicated by diction, syntax, metrical shifts?
3. If the poem has a title (other than a number or the
first line of the poem), what are the implications of it.
4. Are there clusters of patterns of imagery—religious,
economic, or images drawn from nature? How do they
contribute to the poem?
5. Is irony used? To what effect?
6. How does connotation help establish meaning—using
the word ‘Dad’ instead of ‘Father’, for example.
7. What are the implications of syntax—simple, complex,
compound, fragments etc. What about the use of
polysyndeton and asyndeton? Loose sentences vs.
periodic sentences vs. telegraphic? What does it imply
of the speaker?
8. Do metrical variations occus, and if so, what is their
significance?
9. Do rhyming words have some meaningful connection?
Consider the clichés ‘moon’ and ‘June,’ ‘love’ and
‘dove.’
10. What are the implications of the appearance of the
poem on the page—for example, of an indented line, or
of the stanzaic pattern?
