Joanna G. answered • 06/17/25
Advanced Degree, 20+ Years Teaching Interpretation of Literature
1) Read the poem 1x just to get slightly familiar with it. Imagine you're stepping into a new school or have just arrived at your dorm and need to get your bearings and wander around a bit.
2) Read the poem 2 more times, circling moments you like or are interesting to you as well as sounds and words/combinations of words you enjoy. Remember that no writer creates a poem so that it can be analyzed by anyone. Your assignment may require you to interpret, analyze, or explicate, but the poet hasn't required you to do that. Take some time to enjoy the sounds of language.
3) Decide on what kind of poem it is. Is it a narrative poem that tells a story? A lyric poem that meditates (reflects) on a feeling or experience? Where does it surprise you? For instance, if a narrative poem starts with the ending of the story, this may cause irony or suspense, or an enlarged sense of empathy on the part of the reader.
4) Remember that the person who wrote the poem is NOT the person narrating the poem. A poem, just like any other work of art, may draw on the writer's experience or may not. The narrator of a poem is referred to as THE SPEAKER.
4a) Is the poem written in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person? Let's decide our imaginary poem is written in the 1st person.
5) Who is this 1st person speaker? A betrayed girlfriend? A grown man mulling over the loss of his father? A cat considering how to torment his owners? Also, who is being spoken to--the person who carried out the betrayal? The neglectful cat owner? The father who cannot speak back? These things will be suggested by the poem most likely and not stated. It's your job to take part in the piece and share in the experience, and the possibilities will become clear to you.
6) Once you establish the speaker, look for words that tell you about the mood and tone of the poem. Some words connote joy, other loneliness, others anger, and so on.
8) Do the images (that you see, hear, taste, touch, smell) in the poem help create or enhance the feelings established by word choice? For instance, are the flowers black, torn, and droopy---or tall and lush? Images will also help you understand the mix of emotions the speaker feels.
9) What about the sounds of the poem? Do you hear harsh sounds (think: crackle, gag) or mellifluous sounds such as "lull" and "hush"? Or again, a combination of sounds that may enhance the speaker's conflicted emotions? Which sounds dominate? The sounds and images that dominate, vs. those that edge in from the corners can tell you a lot about the speaker's emotional state and what she might be trying to keep out of her memory--but cannot.
10) How does the poem end? On a note of closure that wraps up the entire situation? The betrayer returns to the girlfriend and they have a milkshake? Or does it end on an image of blinking lights? Either way, the context of the poem will provide clues about this final line, which may hit with a punch. That last line leaves you thinking, good. What DOESN'T it resolve? What does the lack of resolution tell you about the speaker's state of mind? What's the vision that you're left with?
FINALLY, the above should give you a good foundation for exploring a theme in a poem, or how the images affect the mood of a poem, or how sound and images together reflect the theme of betrayal.
Poems poetry betrayal
