For Lady Hawkins Ph.D only

Length: approximately five hundred words

Value: ten percent of semester grade

For this assignment, interpret the meaning of a poem. Be sure to quote the poem a couple of times as you proceed through your essay. Try to identify a major theme in the poem, and describe how the poet conveyed that theme.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THE ENTIRE ESSAY SHOULD BE IN YOUR OWN WORDS

(except for the quoted lines from the poem).

Questions to consider:

1. Is the poet sending a message to the world or society?

2. Is the poet addressing a human tendency and commenting upon it?

3. Does the poem reflect what might have been happening in the poet’s life?

4. Is some sort of wisdom imparted by the poet?

Remember, do not summarize the poem. You may refer to the details of the poem, of course, but only as they are related to the meaning.

It’s just you and the poem!

Upcoming poems:

Edgar Allan Poe:

“The Raven”

“Annabel Lee”

Emily Dickinson:

“After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” “I Like to See It Lap the Miles”

“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?”

“The Bustle in a House” “I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed”

“The Heart is Capital of the Mind” “My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close”

“A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” “Much Madness Is Divinest Sense”

“Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church” “Tell All the Truth But Tell It Slant”

“There’s a Certain Slant of Light” “Success is Counted Sweetest”

“There Is No Frigate Like a Book” “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!”

Robert Frost:

“Acquainted with the Night”

“A Considerable Speck”

“Desert Places”

“Design”

“Fire and Ice”

“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

“The Road Not Taken”

“The Silken Tent”

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

“The Oven Bird”

“Once by the Pacific”

“Out, Out—“

Langston Hughes: Sylvia Plath:

“Cross” “Lady Lazarus”

“Harlem” “Daddy”

“Theme for English B”