Poetry critical analisys essay. It is required to discuss at least 2 of the following terms: Rhyme scheme, meter, alliteration, diction. In adittion discuss 3 of the following: Stanza, ambiguity, image, tone, persona, denotations, etc
English 112—Poetry Critical Analysis
Kim Lewis
Assignment: You have been given four poems to choose from at the bottom on this assignment sheet. Here are the details:
You will choose one of the poemsto analyze in order to explain an important effect the work has on the reader.
Ask yourself if the ambiguity goes too far, if the complex meaning is too deep for most readers, if readers can fully interpret an emotion here without a plot, if an image successfully produces an emotion, if the author produces a convincing persona, which successful element of a poem reveals a theme, etc.
This will be an open-book, open-note analysis. Your paper, however, must be your own. It will go through the plagiarism detection software, Turnitin.com, automatically.
For this paper, you will write 1,000 words on the interpretation of a poem, including a thesis, introduction, conclusion, paragraph structure and in-text citations.
You must discuss whether the poem you’re covering is fixed form or free verse.
You will be required to discuss at length at least twoof the following terms.
- Rhyme Scheme
- Meter
- Alliteration
- Diction
In addition, you will be expected to discuss, in depth, threeof the following general terms we’ve discussed or read about independently[some overlap from fiction]:
- Stanza
- End rhyme
- Exact rhymes
- Near rhyme
- Consonance
- Ambiguity
- Repetition
- End-stopped line
- Run-on line
- Enjambment Stress [or accent]
- Rhythm
- Assonance
- Euphony
- Cacophony
- Satire
- Verbal irony
- Situational irony
- Dramatic irony
- Didactic
- Literary symbol
- Conventional symbol
- Image
- Simile
- Metaphor
- Syntax
- Tone
- Persona
- Denotations
- Connotations
Focus: Be hyper aware of the structure of your work, so that quotes come in at appropriate times with appropriate references and citations.
Remember: You want to approach this without assuming that a poem is a code that can be translated, but instead shows an ambiguous message of emotion that you want to aim to understand.
Assessment: This paper will focus directly on the following course requirements from the VCCS and measure each student’s ability to complete them:
Student Learning Outcomes:
- Students will write essays that emphasize content, organization, and quality of argument and include primary and secondary sources.
- Students will apply critical strategies to the literature that they read and discuss [Gen. Ed. 1.1].
- Upon completion of this course the student will be able to write a researched essay of a minimum of 1500 words that demonstrates the ability to locate, evaluate, and select appropriate outside source information; appropriately integrate outside source information and accurately cite according to documentation guidelines [Gen. Ed. 2.3].
Scroll down for your poem options:
His and Hers
By Diane Gilliam Fisher
She cannot imagine it otherwise.
She wakes in the morning and twists her ring,
loves how every night in their bed he lies
breathing warm in the dark and never shies
away. He lets her talk, he lets her sing.
She cannot imagine it otherwise.
One night she’s surprised how gently he tries
to move her arm when he thinks she’s sleeping.
In the night, in their bed, she sees he lies
watching the ceiling long before sunrise.
Too much coffee, too many late nights working.
She cannot imagine it otherwise.
He quiets. The more she worries and pries
the less he tells her about anything.
She’s sure every night in their bed he lies
wanting a room beyond reach of her eyes.
He sighs—she cries so much, Over nothing.
She cannot imagine it otherwise:
Every night in their bed, he lies.
Source: Dreadful Wind & Rain [Red Hen Press, 2017]
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Drumming Behind You in the High School Band
By William Trowbridge
Rehearsing in street clothes after school,
we measured off the football field
in the spice and chill of early fall.
Through roll-off, counterpoint, and turn,
by the grunt and pop of blocking drill,
I marked the cadence of switching hips
no martial air could ever hold.
How left was left, how right was right!
We had a rhythm all our own
and made them march to it, slowing “The Stars
and Stripes Forever” as the sun stretched
our shadows toward the rising moon
and my heart kept stepping on my heels.
Source: “Drumming Behind You in the High School Band” by William Trowbridge, from Enter Dark Stranger. © University of Arkansas Press, 1989.
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Weather
By Eve Merriam
Dot a dot dot dot a dot dot
Spotting the windowpane.
Spack a spack speck flick a flack fleck
Freckling the windowpane.
A spatter a scatter a wet cat a clatter
A splatter a rumble outside.
Umbrella umbrella umbrella umbrella
Bumbershoot barrel of rain.
Slosh a galosh slosh a galosh
Slither and slather a glide
A puddle a jump a puddle a jump
A puddle a jump puddle splosh
A juddle a pump a luddle a dump
A pudmuddle jump in and slide
Source: Catch a Little Rhyme, published by Macmillan, 1966.
Basement Barber
By Michael Chitwood
Here were said the words men say.The oil stove winked its slit black eye;it knew they did not have their way. A whitetail made for the edge of the page.Vitalis came before the talc.My father’s dark hair began to fade. Barrelhead Thurman palmed my scalp,knuckled my ear when he was donejust to hear a little boy yelp. They rode, hats off, through years of lieson bus seats the county junked,out-fished, out-hunted the ones who’d died. My father’s dark hair began to fade.The oil stove winked its slit black eye.It knew he did not have his way. The dead grow long and beautiful hair.They have said what they had to sayto stir that basement’s damp, sweet air.
Source: From Whence by Michael Chitwood. Copyright © 2007 by Michael Chitwood
