Poetry Study

This is an exercise in the understanding and explication of poetry. Please follow the procedure to help in the understanding of the poem you have been assigned.

1.  Read your poem at least three times, at least once aloud.

2. Summarize the poem in two ways
Literally - What the text actually means
Figuratively - What alternate meaning may exist

3. Choose 5 of the literary terms and apply them to your poem.

Alliteration
Assonance
Blank verse
Consonance
Couplet
Diction
Figurative language
Free verse
Iambic pentameter
Meter
Invented words
Lyric poetry
Metaphor
Narrative poetry
Paradox
Patterned verse
Personification
Repetition
Rhyme
Rhythm
Simile
Sonnet
Symbol

4. Create a visual interpretation of your poem

5. Present your poem to the class.

These are the poets we have studied:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Emily Dickinson
Oliver Wendall Holmes
Walt Whitman
Slave Spiritual
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Edgar Lee Masters
William Carlos Williams
Carl Sandburg
Robert Frost
Langston Hughes
William Wordsworth