poetry

You need to complete essay number one (read all notes in this section before you begin work on the essay). Remember:

· Read the prompt for essay one carefully (the prompt can be found in the next couple of pages)

· Start loose: it may prove helpful to relax about the shape of your essay until you have spent some time generating ideas and getting thoughts onto the page (there are some tips for doing just this in the notes from the second week of the class-- your discussion assignments are intended as practice for this more significant assignment, so apply what you have learned from the course notes, the textbook chapters, and your earlier writing).

After you have a rough sketch of what you want to say, begin to draft and organize your work into a formal essay.

· You should be developing a strong tentative thesis and you should support this from the details of your experience.

· This is not a research paper, but you may need to do some minimal research to fill in gaps in your memory of the reading experience or experiences.

The notes on this page are intended to help with writing paper one, an explication of a poem. Be sure to also read the essay prompt included in your notes for more specific instructions.  First, you must understand that in writing an explication, you adopt the role of a teacher explaining the meaning of the poem to other readers.

Be confident and base this explanation on a careful reading of the poem and on the concepts learned in your book (if you need to return to the notes on annotation and active reading, these will help you more closely examine the poem).

For your first paper, I also expect you to demonstrate the following in your writing:

· Ability to write the formal essay (NOT A SUMMARY)

· Use of a clear and specific thesis (Focus),

· Use of topic sentences to express supporting points in each paragraph throughout the body of your essay (organization and focus),

· An overall attention to the logical organization of these supporting points, including transitions that move your readers from one paragraph to another (organization and focus),

· Use of effective supporting evidence in the form of direct quotations from the literature, outside research that applies to your critical approach, and your interpretation of these facts (support and development),

· An ability to properly integrate quoted material into your supporting paragraphs using signal phrases, correctly formatted MLA in-text citations, and valid research that is documented in a works cited page,

· Use of third-person, objective, properly punctuated, and grammatically correct sentences that communicate complete ideas or thoughts (mechanics and style)

This will be a challenging assignment; I expect you to write a thoughtful and effective formal essay if you want to earn at least a "C" for your work.  This challenge will demand that you ask good questions of the poem you are going to discuss. See the chapter in your textbook that outlines "writing about poems" for a great set of questions to help you take stock of what a poem is saying (you can also review the poetry reading checklist in the textbook's introductory chapters on poetry).  You should also review and have a firm grasp of the characteristics of poetry as described in your textbook chapters and in the course notes.  This understanding must inform your writing if you expect to earn a decent grade on this essay.

Here, I'll discuss one more way you can conceptualize how to critically think about a poem's meaning by asking good questions.

Reporters have to do a thorough job of covering a news story, but any writer needs to do the same thing with his or her subject. In this case, you are writing an explication which argues for your interpretation of a poem, and you need to be a sleuth who is ready to thoroughly report on your subject. Key Tips #1 Your paper should instruct other readers on how best to read the poem you have chosen (you must choose a poem from the "selected poems" for this assignment). In order to make your writing convincing, you have to make sure that you closely read and gain insight into the literature. #2 You don't have to worry if your interpretation is the same one I would have, but you do have to convince me and other readers that your interpretation is worth considering. In order to do this, the reporter's questions, adapted to poetry, will serve you well! #3 Keep in mind that the answers to all of these questions will not necessarily be important in supporting your interpretation of the poem. However, a good prewriting strategy would be to answer each of these questions to ensure you have covered all aspects of the poem that are important in understanding its meaning. This will allow you to use these prewriting answers to help you develop further support for your specific thesis. #4 Also, you want to ensure that there is not evidence in the poem that contradicts your understanding of it. In the end, your interpretation should make sense of the entire poem. Leave no stone unturned! If, upon closer reading and after close questioning, you arrive at a better understanding of the poem's meaning, be sure to change your thesis for this paper to reflect this more insightful interpretation! A stronger thesis will help you write a stronger essay, so be sure to write the entire paper with your strongest thesis in mind. #5 Write your paper objectively and in third person. Sound authoritative and don't make obvious suggestions that might weaken or soften the power of your interpretation: "poetry is open to interpretation... I think the poem is about.... etc.." Instead, make your interpretation direct and without hesitation: "This poem clearly illuminates... Oliver's short, lyrical description of a bear helps readers realize that..."

Reporter's Questions

Who (voice and characters)?

Who is the speaker in the poem? Is there a listener or a particular type of audience implied by the poem? Are there other characters?

 

Who is the author and what can you find out about his beliefs, values, and life story? (some research, even though not required, may prove very helpful in answering this question and helping you explain the literature effectively).

What?

What happens in the poem? What is the poem’s basic story? What is the trouble or conflict in this poem?

Why?

What is the motivation for the speaker or other characters in the poem? What is the intent or purpose of the speaker or author? Work your way towards a confident answer and remember that you can't read the author's mind, so you are better off focusing on what the poem specifically says (the evidence on the page).

When?

During what time period was the poem written? When do the events in the poem take place? Is there anything about this context that is useful in explaining the poem? (some research, even though not required, may prove very helpful in answering this question and helping you explain the literature effectively).

Where?

Where is the poem set? Where was it written? What does this setting say about the poem overall? (some research, even though not required, may prove very helpful in answering this question and helping you explain the literature effectively).

How?

· Do you respond to the poem (don't include this response directly in your paper– rather, use your reaction to the poem to help you relate to its message. A strong emotional or personal reaction to the poem can inform you about the poem's message and help you purposefully explain its meaning. Don’t unexpectedly switch from the objective, third-person point-of-view to the intimate first person point-of-view. Keep the writing in your essay in third person, but when prewriting and drafting your explanation of the poem, thinking and writing about your personal response can be very helpful).

· Does the poet’s word choice contribute to the poem (vocabulary)?

· How does the poem use

· imagery (details that appeal to the five senses)

· figurative language (metaphor, simile, personification, apostrophe, etc)

· symbolism

· or irony (save this one for the long paper if you need it-- or read ahead)?

· How is the poem written? (Remember that poems are written in lines and stanzas and it is appropriate to refer to the parts of a poem in this fashion.) If you want to get more technical (this will really make you sound like you know what you are talking about), you might discuss

· Couplets (two lines set apart)

· Tercets (three lines…)

· Quatrains (four lines…)

· Quintains (five lines…)

· Sestets (six lines…)

· Septet (seven lines..)

· Octaves (eight lines…)

· Does it use formal meter? A more detailed discussion of this begins on page 660 of your textbook (the stresses are marked in your book), but I will include some brief notes here. You can discover the meter of a poem by counting the syllables in each line and seeing if they conform to a general pattern. If they do, the poet has written metered poetry as opposed to free verse. Iambic pentameter, for example, has ten syllables in each line. These syllables make five feet (two syllables for each foot). Each foot consists of an "iamb," or one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (see the examples below-- if you read them aloud can you hear the different rhythms?). An iamb and trochee are composed of two syllables per foot, whereas the anapest and the datyl are composed of three syllables per foot (bold syllables are stressed syllables).

· Two iambic feet (the dark of night)

· Two trochaic feet (Flight of eagle’s)

· Two anapestic feet (in the trough of this desire…)

· Two dactylic feet (Blackened by Fire of his…)

 

Does it use special sound effects?

· Sound patterns: assonance (clue and brood), alliteration (tucked and torn), rhyme (brood and lewd)

· Other rhetorical patterns? Is there a repeating image, a refrain of sorts, a climatic ordering of details or events, etc.?

Organizing Essay One

 

 

Organizing it

There are two ways (with numerous variations– choose the pattern that best helps you explain how to read your particular poem) In other words, the form or your writing should logically follow the content and purpose of your writing (this applies to all successful writing– poetry, essays, stories, etc.).

Method 1: line by line

This is generally considered the most formal and expected way to write an explication. You arrange your essay's paragraphs to follow the chronological ordering of the poem or how it is read: Supporting Paragraph 1 is about the title Paragraph 2 is about line 1 Paragraph 3 is about stanza 2 (etc) A useful prewriting suggestion: type each line of the poem into your word processor.

Use each line as a writing prompt where you explore every word and possibility in that line until you have exhausted your discussion… move onto the next line… Once you are sure of your thesis, go back and cut discussion that is not relevant to your thesis. Rewrite your discussion so that it helps explain your specific thesis.

Method 2: point by point (I still have yet to see a very successful 102 poetry explication written this way, so the first option is generally recommended)

This isn't that much different than method 1 and the results can be quite similar. You arrange your essay's paragraphs to follow the different noticeable features of the poem: Supporting Paragraph 1 is about form (meter, etc.) Paragraph 2 is about imagery Paragraph 3 is about irony (etc) A useful pre-writing suggestion: type each feature of poetry into your word processor (symbolism, figurative language, voice, etc). Use each feature as a writing prompt where you explore everything that demonstrates that feature in the poem. Write until you have exhausted your discussion… move onto the next feature… This would be like answering each of the reporter's questions from the previous slide. Once you understand your thesis, go back and cut discussion that is not relevant to your thesis.

Rewrite your discussion so that it helps explain your specific thesis.

In either of the above methods:

You have a chance of greatly improving your essay if you are willing to rewrite your thesis to reflect a more specific and interesting overall insight into the meaning of the poem.

 

Thesis:

Avoid a thesis that only asks for a summary of the poem. The following is NOT AN ACCEPTABLE THESIS: "Li Young Lee's "Braiding" is a poem about a man who braids his wife's hair." This is a fact that calls for nothing more than summary of what happens. If I want to know what the poem is "about," in this basic sense of the word, I'll read the poem. For your thesis, express an overall way to read the poem that is debatable or open to argument (this doesn't mean that your thesis has to be argumentative in tone, but that it should be a subjective and specific opinion or claim about what the poem means overall).

Topic sentences for an Explication

Really, topic sentences function the same way in an explication as they would in any other essay; they announce to the reader what will be discussed in the paragraph and limit the scope of the paragraph. They control the content and the main idea of the paragraph. Remember: A topic sentence does not introduce a subject that is too complex or too simple to be covered in a paragraph. Remaining sentences are subordinate to, and support, the topic sentence What is the structure of a topic sentence? A topic sentence can be broken into two parts:

1. the "refrain": lets the readers know the general domain of the paragraph (relates the paragraph back to the thesis).

2. the limiting idea: narrows the domain to the specific supporting idea the paragraph will fully develop and discuss.

Consider the thesis: In Wislawa Szymborska's poem, Two Monkeys by Brueghel, the poet interprets the painting to symbolize mankind's struggle to free itself from the limitations of its own history. This thesis should be the focus my entire paper. Below, are two attempts at topic sentences for this paper:

1. The following sentence does not have a limiting idea and is therefore not a good topic sentence: "Szymborska's poem, as mentioned earlier, is highly symbolic." (Here, we have the right thesis indicated, but this statement doesn't narrow the scope of the paragraph to a single supporting point. It's not even as specific as the thesis!).

2. This sentence, by contrast, contains a limiting idea: "While Szymborska sees the monkeys as symbols of mankind's counterproductive history, he sees the landscape of sea and sky (through the window) as the promise of future ideals and progress."

The second sentence would clearly limit the paragraph to the development of a specific idea that also supports the thesis. This paragraph would predictably develop an explanation of how the sea and sky can be interpreted to represent such things (or a type of freedom from the limitations mentioned in the thesis). Good!

Best support: quoted language from the poem

A successful, well supported explication needs to quote liberally from the poem it is explaining. Use specific lines and words from the poem as proof that your interpretation is credible. The notes that follow give you some basic guidelines on how to quote your poem for this paper. You need a signal phrase: your words introducing source material, its author, and the material's context (the signal phrase in the example is in blue font for demonstration purposes-- you shouldn't make all of your signal phrases blue): The Cave begins with the setting of a forge shop, where "All day long[…]/ The drop hammers fell" (1-2). Blockquotes You can even use blockquotes to include multiple lines. When quoting poetry, you should use a blockquote any time you are including four lines or more (blockquotes are indented by one inch, according to MLA format). Hanzlicek's poem begins by establishing a harsh, noisy industrial setting that will sharply contrast with the quiet, spiritual reflection in the cave:

All day long in the forge shop The drop hammers fell A full two stories To mash the red hot metal bars Into the molds. We could hear them In our house a mile away (1-7).

 

A small sample of useful "signal" verbs. Use a variety of different verbs to talk about what the poem, speaker, or voice is doing or saying:

Adds Agrees Asserts Claims Implies Rejects Suggests

juxtaposes suggests implies shows addresses emphasizes stresses accentuates enables explains demonstrates

dramatizes presents illustrates characterizes underlines asserts posits enacts connects portrays contrasts

A more extensive list of signal verbs: SignalVerbsandPhrases.pdf

Need an idea on how to vary signal phrases? Here are some specific examples: According to the speaker of the poem, " Furthermore, the narrator tells us In "The Cave," the language continues to suggest that This possibility is implied by the ending of the poem. "Always it has been for me the seen/," the speaker explains, "High, high above/ The unseen world" (57-59).

Avoid incorrect grammar when including quotes

You can easily run into problems when including a quote with a signal phrase. You should always form a complete, clear, and grammatically correct sentence when you include a quote. Problem with subject verb agreement: Charles Baxter suggests that "literary epiphanies naturally has…" Modern poets, Larry Levis explains, "testifies not merely to private loss, exile,and knowledge, but to a collective and generational loss, exile and knowledge" A problem with a point-of-view shift: Baxter explains that "I have spent much of my life among the officially unconverted" How to fix problems with included quotes Edit the signal phrase: Modern poetry, as Larry Levis explains it, "testifies Use brackets to insert language: Charles Baxter suggests that "[the rhetoric of] literary epiphanies naturally has…" Edit for point-of-view: Baxter explains that he has "spent much of [his] life among the officially unconverted" Remember

1. Your job is to persuade or teach your readers how to read the poem.

2. Make the lesson worthwhile by gaining an insight into the overall meaning of the poem that is interesting!

3. You need to be a very close reader of your poem! You need to uncover all of the interesting things that add up to your poem's overall meaning.

4. Use all of the new knowledge you have of poetry (from the reading in the textbook and the notes) to elevate the professionalism of your discussion and make your writing as specific as possible.

5. Finally, don't forget to make your lesson convincing by using the details of the poem to support your claims.