Strategies for Reading Poetry

1. Strategies for Reading Poetry

2. 1. ___________________________, each time paying attention to a different level of ___________. • Read the first time, paying attention to all footnotes and looking for possible meanings of unfamiliar words in order to ascertain the general topic and what is going on in the poem. • Read again, this time paying attention to the implication of choices of words and images and looking for symbols and allusions to support and extend your initial interpretation.

3. Take particular note of titles and endings. Titles often give clues or reinforce meaning. • Your interpretation of a poem must take into account the ending. If you do not you often end up with an incomplete interpretation. An ending can sometimes entirely contradict an interpretation that ignores it.

4. 2. Use _____________ as important cues to meaning Stopping at the end of a hue of poetry when there is no punctuation often breaks it up into meaningless chunks. In poetry, as in all writing, punctuation marks such as question marks and commas can _____________________, semicolons and colons can show ___________________, and exclamation marks can help to reinforce __________.

5. 3. Know the ___________________ that are used to add or enhance meaning. • Metaphor • Personification • Simile • Allusion • Symbolism • Synecdoche • Metonymy • An apostrophe is a statement, question, or request addressed to someone who is dead or absent, or to an inanimate object

6. 4. Know the _____________ that are used to evoke _____________ and ______________. Reading a poem with attention to these will help you to understand the mood, atmosphere, feelings, and emotion that the poet wants to convey. For example, repetition of soft sounds such as “____” or “____” can reinforce a peaceful mood, while repetition of harsh sounds can reinforce the idea of conflict.

7. Alliteration • Assonance • Consonance • Half rhyme • Onomatopoeia • Rhyme • Rhythm and Verse Poets work with these variable rhythms of speech through the deliberate intensification and patterning of rhythm and also through the deliberate intensification of the images and emotions that are invoked by words. The three most common types of verse in English poetry are given below.

8. ____________________ verse is written with a strongly patterned rhythm. The meter guides the reading of metrical verse, and some of the meaning is carried by the rhythm. It is also called conventional verse. • ____________________verse does not have regular metrical or rhyme patterns. It often has definite, though variable, rhythms that resemble the cadence of everyday speech. Free verse may be rhymed or unrhymed, but any rhymes that do occur are likely to be irregular and may not occur at the end of lines. • ____________________ verse is unrhymed poetry that is written in iambic pentameters.