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POETRY
When we analyze poetry, what were going to do is
take a look at the structure of poems and try to
figure out their meanings. Poems are very
compact. They have a lot of information in a
really small space. So, youre going to have to
analyze each line in a poem and really take a
look at all those words and try to figure out
what they mean. I always tell my students there
are lots of correct answers as well as a lot of
wrong answers when analyzing poetry. Your job is
to try to figure out meaning in a poem and then
you have to use lines from that poem to support
your ideas. So go ahead and click on that green
button and check out the lecture on poetry.
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Poem Example My Papas Waltzby Theodore Roethke

• The whiskey on your breathCould make a
  small boy dizzyBut I hung on like deathSuch
  waltzing was not easy.
• We romped until the pansSlid from the
  kitchen shelfMy mother's countenanceCould not
  unfrown itself.
• The hand that held my wristWas battered on
  one knuckleAt every step you missedMy right
  ear scraped a buckle.
• You beat time on my headWith a palm caked
  hard by dirt,Then waltzed me off to bedStill
  clinging to your shirt.

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Structure of Poetry

• Rhyming or Prose not rhyming.
• When we analyze the structure of a poem, we
  usually try to find out if it is a rhyming poem
  where lines rhyme perhaps at the end of the lines
  or sometimes in the middle. We even have sight
  rhymes where the words look like they would rhyme
  on the page even though if we pronounce them, the
  words dont rhyme, and then we have prose and
  what prose essentially means is non-rhyming.
• If we take a look at My Papas Waltz, we can see
  that this is a rhyming poem. For example, in the
  first stanza the whiskey on you breath / could
  make a small boy dizzy / but I hung on like death
  / such waltzing was not easy. We can see that
  the second and forth lines rhyme dizzy / easy.

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Structure of Poetry II

• Poems are usually broken into sections separated
  by a space called Stanzas like a paragraph -
  couplet 2 lines, tercet 3, quatrain 4
• My Papas Waltz has 4 stanzas and each is made of
  4 lines quatrain
• Why know this structure?
• Sometimes the structure leads to a better
  understanding of the meaning. For example, from
  My Papas Waltz, we can see that every stanza
  kind of moves a little bit. The first part talks
  about the whiskey on his breath and hanging on,
  the next stanza talks about being in the kitchen,
  the next stanza talks about the dance itself, and
  finally the last stanza its taking him off to
  bed. So you can see those stanzas are there to
  break up time and show us movement in the poem.

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Analyzing Poetry

• Speaker
• The person speaking in the poem may not be the
  poet. It may be that the poet has created a
  persona, or a person in the poem.
• In My Papas Waltz the speaker is the little
  boy now grown up. We know this because it says in
  the last stanza you beat time on my head, my
  head telling us its the speaker whos the boy.
  However, the language is not of a small boy but
  of an adult so we can figure out the poem is of
  a memory.
• Audience in the poem
• Theres often an audience thats in the poem. For
  example, the poem may be written to someone
  specific not us.
• The audience in My Papas Waltz is the father
  because he says the whiskey on your breath
  your breath fathers breath. Also the title
  My Papas Waltz.
• Audience reading poem there is the intended
  audience when poem was written and of course you
  are the audience too!

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Words 1

• Tone of voice Rhythm
• tells us the mood happy / sad/ angry / excited/
  passionate / etc
• Tells us the message how we should feel about
  the information
• Again in My Papas Waltz, if you listen to the
  poem, the whiskey on your breath / could make a
  small boy dizzy / but I hung on like death / such
  waltzing was not easy. If you read out loud and
  most poems should be read out loud, theres a
  rhythm there. A waltz goes 1,2,3,-1,2,3,-1,2,3,
  and the way the rhythm in the poem is the
  whiskey on your breath, its 1,2,3 the same
  rhythm. Its very clever, and so we kind of have
  this waltz rhythm all the way through.

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Words 2

• Diction choice of words
• If you describe a car crash and you call it an
  accident thats a very different image then if I
  said two cars smashed into one another.
• Syntax order of words
• If someone says, Hi, how are you doing?, thats
  a regular kind of order of words were used to,
  but if the person says, Doing how are you? -
  that would kind of surprise us because the order
  of words were reversed - so pay attention when
  word orders are different, the author is trying
  to get your attention.
• Denotation literal meaning Connotation
  implied meaning
• If I said Mary had a cow and thats a literal
  meaning or denotation then Mary is probably a
  farmer, and she owns a cow. However, connotation
  is the implied meaning. If I said Mary had a cow,
  I might mean that shes really upset - not that
  she actually owned a cow.
• Poets often make use of both literal and implied
  meanings in poems in fact, he/she may want us
  to see both meanings at the same time!

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Figure of Speech

• Simile (like)
• she has eyes like blue pools
• Metaphor (is/are)
• her eyes are blue pools
• Personification / anthropomorphism
• giving inanimate objects human or living
  characteristics, so your can say the car purred
  happily or the door groaned in pain
• Allusion (reference to another work, historical
  event, art, or person to add depth of meaning)
• An Allusion can be in the title of the poem or
  some line in the poem will refer to another work,
  maybe a piece of art or a person, to add depth of
  meaning. It doesnt mean the poem is about that
  actual thing!! It means its similar. By alluding
  to that other idea, the poet brings greater depth
  to the poem.

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Figures of Speech Cont..

• Metonymy words based on association
• Crown monarchy so when we say he took the
  crown, we dont mean just took the crown like a
  thief. We probably mean that hes taking over the
  monarchy and that hes become king.
• Synecdoche part whole
• Hand whole person so when he takes her hand in
  marriage, he doesnt just marry her hand, he
  marries all of her.
• Hyperbole exaggeration
• I told you a million times to turn down that
  stereo!
• Litote understatement
• Lets say I ate 10 candy bars, and someone asks,
  Did you eat a lot of chocolate today? and I
  reply, Just a tad. opposite of hyperbole
• Paradox and Oxymoron - impossibilities and
  contradictions
• A paradox is two situations that couldnt
  possibly occur at the same time a man could be
  alive and dead in a poem at the same time.
• An oxymoron combines two contradictory terms like
  jumbo shrimp. Shrimp means small and jumbo very
  big, so how you can have jumbo smalls??

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Sound

• Mood (flowing, choppy)
• We can really get the mood from the way things
  sound. I remember a line from the Raven, and the
  silk and sad uncertain rustling of each purple
  curtain thrilled me, as Ive never been thrilled
  before. The sound of that can really give us a
  mood or an idea.
• Onomatopoeia words that sound things they
  represent
• buzz sounds like a bee sound or hiss sounds like
  the actual cat sound
• Alliteration same consonant at beginning of
  each word
• Little lover lacy
• Assonance same vowel sounds close together
• The crook took the book
• Poets use these techniques to get the readers
  attention, so a line where you find this is
  usually important.

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Rhyme Scheme

• Often what will happen in a poem is well have
  very similar rhyme schemes. So if we take a look
  at My Papas Waltz the first stanza, ends on the
  sounds from breath sound A, the next line
  dizzy sound B, third line ends with death and
  rhymes with breath so that would be sound A
  again and easy rhymes with dizzy that would be
  Sound B again. So our rhyme scheme would be a,
  b, a, b.
• The whiskey on your breath sound aCould make a
  small boy dizzy sound b But I hung on like
  death sound a Such waltzing was not easy.
  sound b
• Rhyme schemes can change - in fact they can be
  very complicated - you can have abc, abc, you
  could have a b c b d b, so only every other line
  rhymes.
• Rhyme schemes can be really complicated. Take a
  look at the rhyme scheme, often there will be a
  change in the poems rhyme scheme and that will
  give us a clue thats an important line we should
  take a look at.

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Impressions

• Imagery sensory impressions
• In My Papas Waltz, the first stanza the whisky
  on your breath could make a small boy dizzy, we
  could almost smell that strong alcohol. Theres
  also sound we romped until the pans slipped from
  the kitchen shelf, so theres that clattering of
  the pans coming down. We can see the mothers
  frowning, my mothers countenance could not
  unfrown itself. We can even feel in the poem for
  example for every step you missed my right ear
  scraped a buckle, so we kind of feel the little
  boy is kind of getting hurt in all of this
  dancing. So we want to take a look at those
  sensory impressions because theyre trying to
  make an impact on us and make us feel something.
• Symbolism red rose love
• In My Papas Waltz, the waltz itself is kind of a
  symbol. Its a dance. Now a waltz is a very
  formulated dance, and we can kind of see that
  this symbol for two people moving around
  together. However, its a little ironic since
  this dance is not regulated and pans slide from
  the shelf. So papa is doing a waltz, but not in
  the right way. So we have a double meaning like
  the father is playing with his son which is good,
  but hes a bit drunk and rough, so thats bad.

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Irony

• Verbal irony (one thing said, another meaning
  intended)
• You could have a man tell a woman, I love you
  but we cant be sure of the meaning, does he
  really mean I love you, or is he being ironic?
  Is he saying, Yeah, I love you as in of course
  I DONT love you, but because we dont hear tone
  of voice in poems we have to really look for
  other clues to let us know what the author means.