First, look at the form;
How many stanzas?
How many lines in each one?
Any noticeable rhyme scheme?
Is it a Ballad type,
that is common so,
by making every other line rhyme like
the end of two lines ago?
[Who caught the internal rhyme?]
notice any grammar oddities
perhaps no punctuation
or long run on sentences
without any capitalization
Look for
any
sort
of weird
Enjambment
in the
stanza.
It happens often when the poet
decides to personify
an inanimate
object
to help you understand
the poem’s thoughts.
Also, what persona is the poet?
Am I me? Or am I someone else?
And who is you?
Is you you, or is you the human nearby?
Be wary of caesuras. They make you stop and think.
Look for clichés like ‘Love is a flower’.
Wait a minute, did you just read a metaphor or a simile?
It’s funny when when you see repetition.
Yet know it it is on purpose.
It stresses the diction the poet meant.
Don’t you you just just love love this this so so much much?
[did you catch the irony involved?]
Understand the difference between
‘denotation’and ‘connotation’.
Denotation, society teaches us, is the literal definition;
Connotation, Webster explains, is the secondary meaning the
word can refer to.
Alliteration is quite important.
Common consonance
or annoying assonance
is there to purposely set the tone.
Now, you see how to do step one.
Yet, the analyzation had just begun.
Good luck on the rest;
I now bid you adieu.
But before I leave,
I’ll give directions for the rest:
Solve the message of the poem’s purpose.
And don’t forget: which school does this poem belong to and
why?
