1. Meaning
What does the poem depict? What is it about? Can you summarize the poem in ordinary language.
2. Antecedent Scenario
What was happening just before the poem begins? What has disturbed the status quo and set the poem in motion?
3. A Division into Structural Parts
How can the poem be divided into parts? By its rhyme scheme? Its formal structure? Its grammar? Its movement through a series of themes, ideas or images?
4. The Climax
Which of the poem's parts contains its climax, or its greatest intensity of tone? Does this intensity come from an especially significant metaphor, a change in rhythm? in person? in tense?
5. The Other Parts
How does each part differ from the others? How does the poet signal the change between each part? What purpose or function does each part serve relative to the whole?
6. Find the Skeleton
What is the dynamic curve of emotion on which the whole poem is arranged? What is the difference between the beginning and the end of the poem, and how does the poet make that trajectory from the beginning to the end?
7. Games the Poet Plays with the Skeleton
What parts of the poem don't fit with the broad "dynamic curve" you described above? How does the poet subvert or revise your expectations about how that curve should be completed?
8. Language
What parts of speech predominate in the poem? What other words, regardless of their parts of speech, make a chain of significant relation? What contexts are expressed in the diction?
9. Tone
What is the poem's general tone? Does this tone change as the poem progresses? How does the poet signal this change?
10. Agency and Speech Acts
Who has agency in the poem? Who acts and who is acted upon? Does this change as the poem progresses?
11. Roads Not Taken
What other choices could the poet have made? How could s/he have ended the poem differently? Organized it differently? Used a different style of diction or tone?
12. Genre, Form, and Rhythm
What is the content genre of the poem? What is the speech act genre of the poem? What is the formal genre of the poem?
13. The Imagination
What has the poet's imagination invented that is striking, memorable, or beautiful? Why is it poignant or compelling?
Group work: work with the members of your group to analyze the poem based on Vendler's rubric.
On Wednesday, each group will give a 5-7-minute presentation on their poem. The goal of your presentation will be to convince the rest of the class that the poem you discussed is worthwhile and unique, and to help the rest of the class to understand and appreciate what the poem has to offer. You will not be able to detail ALL of your answers to the questions in Vendler’s rubric, so before the end of class try to determine which of those questions are most significant to your particular poem. Where has the poet concentrated his or her work or imagination? What is this poem saying to its audience, and why should that audience listen? Concentrate on what makes this poem unique, not only from other forms of speech, thought and writing, but from every other poem that has been written on these well-worn subjects.
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