by Sally Thomas
- Always read the poem more than once.
- Read it at least once aloud. Copying it out is another good way to make your mind “listen” to it slowly and carefully.
- Have a dictionary on hand, but don’t use it until you’ve read the poem at least once all the way through.
- Are there unfamiliar words?
- Are some familiar words used in an unfamiliar way?
- If yes to the last two questions, get out a dictionary and LOOK UP all meanings of the words in question. See if you can figure out what meaning (or meanings) is relevant to the context of the poem.
- While you read, ask yourself:
- How does the poem look on the page?
- a block of text?
- in stanzas of a regular length (2 lines, 3 lines, 4 lines, etc., consistently)?
- in irregular stanzas?
- how many lines in all?
- Short lines or long?
- End-stopped? That is, the end of the line is the natural end of, or a natural break in, the sentence?
- Or enjambed? That is, the line stops, but the sentence keeps going into the next line or lines, breaking at what may seem like unnatural or awkward places?
- Do some lines seem to move faster, and some slower? What seems to create that effect?
- How does the poem look on the page?
- What patterns of sound do you hear, if any?
- Are there rhymes at the ends of lines?
- Can you discern a regular pattern of end-rhymes?
- Are there rhymes within lines?
- Are there repetitions of words and/or sounds? What kind of effect do these repetitions seem to have (repeated liquid sounds? repeated “hard” sounds?)
- Can you hear any regular “beat” or rhythm in the poem? Read it aloud again, and clap or tap the stressed syllables as you say them, to see whether there is a regular number of stressed syllables per line.
- Are there rhymes at the ends of lines?
- Who is speaking in the poem?
- a first-person speaker (“I”)?
- a second-person speaker (“you”)?
- a third-person, possibly omniscient, speaker (“he/she/it”)?
(When talking about a poem, we usually do refer to the speaker saying this or that, rather than the poet. The voice that speaks in a poem is more like a character in fiction than like the writer’s own personal voice – that poetic voice is an artificial construct in the same way and should not be confused with the real-life person of the poet, even if there’s not a huge divide between the two)
- Is there anyone else in the poem, or is the speaker talking to himself?
- Does the poem refer to external events (this happened, then this happened, and then I did this other thing), or is it more like following the trajectory of someone’s thought process, or a series of associations with their own kind of logic?
- Does time move or stand still?
- To what kind of effect do all these things seem to add up?
- Do you sense a particular mood in the poem? Can you point to specific words and phrases that contribute to that mood?
- Do you sense a larger view of the universe operating in the poem: a kind or unkind universe, a universe in which there is God and mercy and grace, or a universe without those things? Hope or despair? Love or bitterness? Again, what words and phrases hint at these things?
- Whether the poem deals with external events or with internal thoughts and feelings, do you sense why these events or thoughts/feelings are important? What makes them urgent?
- Having read the poem carefully, what about it seems most important, or beautiful, or worth thinking about, to you?
