Love Letters to Poetry | How to Read a Poem

For Pleasure

First, read it aloud. Feel the pleasure of the words on your tongue. Let the words fill your body, an instrument that never needs to be tuned.

Take your time.

Read through line endings from punctuation to punctuation. Pause for breath. Listen as you read. Take in the words across your senses.

And at the end of the poem: pause.

Sit with the work.

How do you feel?

For Analysis

Begin with that end of reading feeling — where did it come from? The sounds? The rhythm? The images?

Pursue the questions that appeal to you.

What stands out to you about this poem? Why?

Who is the speaker of the poem? Is someone or something being addressed? What do you know about the speaker and about the moment in the poem? How do you know this?

How does the speaker’s story or emotional journey shift over the course of the poem? Look at the poem as a whole and then look from stanza to stanza and then from line to line. Go back to the poem as a whole.

Is the speaker trying to work out an idea or a problem? What is it? Is this resolved by the end of the poem? If so, how?

What patterns do you see or hear in the poem? Are certain sounds repeated? How long are the stanzas? Does the poem rhyme? What images appear in the poem? When and how do these patterns change?

Write all over the poem as you consider these questions: underline, highlight, and circle elements. What do you notice? Does anything surprise you?

How do these patterns relate to what is happening in the poem?

Now stop and consider the poem with your notes all over it. Reread it. What new questions do you have?

Return to that end of reading feeling and begin again. Repeat until you are satisfied with what you have found.

For Craft

What about this poem calls to you? What do you admire? Is there anything that unsettles you?

Free write for five minutes to start to answer these questions. Most importantly: consider why. Be as specific as possible. Once you have answered why move on to how these effects are created in the poem.

Read what you have written. Mark any observations that surprise or inspire you.

If you like, reread the poem with these observations fresh in your mind. Add any additional notes or observations to your reflection, and then let it rest. This is enough for now.

Return to your notes as needed. Add to them. Change your mind. Ask questions of the poem and of your reflection.

When the time comes, you will use what you learned from this poem. Let it become part of you.

Exercise

Here are links to three poems that are read by their authors. Listen to them. Read them aloud yourself. Read them for pleasure, for analysis, or for craft.

Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

Big Bend National Park Says No to All Walls by Naomi Shihab Nye