Essay #1 | Poetry Explication and Inspiration
Explore the poems, focusing on the specific elements of poetry of the poem, one strictly as a focused analysis of the meaning of the words as they are on the page and the other in a full-on conversation between you and the poem.
Your Portfolio should include the following two pieces: Explication and Response Explication (3 quotes)
? A 3 page explication of one poem from our list of approved poets (or, if you and I talk about it first, one of your own choosing). Based on your close reading, your essay will attempt to reveal to your audience the meaning this machine of meaning, to use Zapruder s term for a poem, produces for you once you ve both read the poem for how it makes you feel and opened it up to see how it makes meaning in the unique ways
poetry can. Keep in mind that your conclusion may be less of an answer to the question what does this poem mean than a clear statement of the question(s) the poem raises for you.
Explication Requirements:
? The first few paragraphs of your explication should (very briefly) provide a summary or overview of the poem, its author, its mode, its central subject, and its context in order to bring the reader to your thesis sentence, a concise statement of what this poem says to you, based on your close reading, about a subject it addresses. The body of your essay should consist of your analysis (the pulling apart of the whole into its parts) of the poem. Open up the hood and see how it runs. Resist oversimplifying or overgeneralizing about the poem. In fact, it would be better to state clearly what questions the poems raises and present multiple possible conclusions. Your reading of the poem should be guided by what you re learning from Matthew Zapruder in Why Poetry.
? Each paragraph should assert a point about a particular understanding you have about how certain elements of the poem (such as form, figurative language, sound, etc.) conspire to create the meaning you ve understood. Use some of the vocabulary you re learning from Zapruder and your study of poetry s elements. Make sure that you quote from the poem (see handout) and fully explain how what you quote supports your point in the paragraph.
? Avoid using the first-person for this piece; instead, focus your sentences with the author and/or the speaker of the poem as your subject as in, Here, Dickinson uses metaphor, describing hope in terms of a bird, that thing with feathers and that perches in the
soul. Or, Wright s speaker, snug in his hammock, watching the sun go down, reflects on his life. Avoid: I find Whitman s repetition, or anaphora, to be moving and inspiring.
? Your essay should include brief quotations and specific evidence from the poem you are exploring. To avoid merely summarizing the poem, work hard to demonstrate how whatever you choose to quote illustrates what you perceive to be meaning within the
poem. Allow that theme to develop/become more complex based on your analysis. In other words, derive what you feel the poem is saying from your close reading, apart from any meaning you might be tempted to apply to the poem or from broad generalizations, eg. war is horrible, or new love is exciting, or depression sucks.
? Your explication should utilize a range of sentence combining strategies, including
FANBOYS, subordination, noun phrase appositives, and verbals.
? Your explication should be 3-4 pages long, carefully proofread, and formatted in MLA Style.
And, Response (3 quotes)
? A 3 page personal essay that arises from your close reading a poem from the Approved List, exploring how the specific elements of the poem, its content, and the thoughts and feelings it invokes in you generate personal connections for you. Choose a poem that you identify with strongly or that engages you in a real way. This essay will balance
in-depth personal storytelling with your focused analysis of the poem, developing clear connections between the two. In this conversation between you and the poem, what do you and the poem have to say to each other about a common subject?
Response Piece-Requirements:
? A response piece should demonstrate an understanding of a poem s overall meaning, major subjects, and theme, but this essay s central claim should focus on how the poem prompts a specific emotional or personal response in you as a reader. What, in other words, is the poem saying to you or about you, personally, and what do you have to say back to it. In this essay, using the first person, you will enter into a deep and meaningful conversation with the poem. Use certain passages from Zapruder s book as a model, noting how he discusses how particular poems affect him at particular moments of his life.
? Your piece should not assume your reader knows who you are. Make sure to introduce the most relevant characteristics of yourself either in the intro or as you go.
? Paragraphs should analyze and make close observations about specific lines, images, or aspects of the poem, AND establish how these elements affect you as a reader in a personal way.
? Your response piece may discuss multiple elements of poetry that are present in the poem, but they may focus, as Zapruder does, on a PARTICULAR way your chosen poem communicates.
? Your response piece should utilize a range of sentence combining strategies, including FANBOYS, subordination, noun phrase appositives, and verbals.
? Your response piece should be 3-4 pages long, carefully proofread, and formatted in
MLA Style, including a Works Cited list.
Assignment Tips and Things to Avoid:
? Explications and response pieces should focus on the poem as opposed to the author of the poem. By this, I mean that you should avoid expanding on the poet s biography or the time it was being written except for (not much more than) a sentence or two in the introduction or not at all unless that info is critical to what you have to say about the poem.
? A good way to start prewriting for your response essay is to reflect on why you chose this poem from the thousands you could have chosen. Choose a different poem if your reason for choosing a poem is one of the following: it seems easy to understand or it is pretty straightforward or it is short or it was the one of the first I came across
read it before for another class. If you ve can t finding anything that connects you in a meaningful way to the poem, dig deeper (into the poem and into yourself) or choose another that has richer possibilities.
? Avoid looking for answers to poems on the Internet (as discussed in the handout How to Read a Poem, reading someone else s reading of a poem is like hearing about a concert rather than actually attending one. And it s cheating.)
? Fully explore the poem (in all of the ways discussed in the How to Read Poetry and more), read Zapruder carefully, and do your Prewriting/Brainstorming/Outlining BEFORE attempting to write either essay. I strongly recommend that you come to see me during your process.
? Use the OWL handout for guidance on writing about poetry and doing and writing about a close reading. Zapruder also provides a fine model.