Reading and Understanding a Poem

Fridge Poetry

From the University of Wisconsin--Madison:


Some people like poetry.  Many people fear poetry.  But they fear it for the wrong reasons because it is difficult to understand.  But poetry is not designed to instantly give up its meaning like a novel or a magazine article. Poems are highly compressed works of literature.  Meaning that a lot of meaning is packed into as little a space as possible.  Understanding a poem requires careful reading and re-reading to extract that meaning from the carefully structured words.


This site from the University of Wisconsin's Writing Center provides a good approach to reading and understanding poetry. Here is a summary of their approach:

Poem Analysis Guide:

i. Read a poem with pencil in hand. Jot down questions.ii. Read a poem several times.  Read it aloud at least once.

1. Who is the poem’s author?  What are his birth and death (if applicable) years?
2. What is the author’s country of origin?
3. Are there any difficult words?  If so, look them up and record them.
4. Consider the title carefully.  
1. What is it implying?  
2. How does it connect to the poem?
5. What is the poem's subject and situation?
1. Who is talking?  To whom are they talking?
2. What are the poem's circumstances?  What happened in the poem?
3. Is something tangible being described?  Something intangible?
6. What figurative language, if any, is used?
1. Is the poem built upon a comparison or analogy?  
2. A simile or metaphor?  
7. What is the author's attitude toward the subject of the poem?
8. Are there divisions within the poem?  
1. How is the poem ordered?
2. Are there stanzas?  What size?
9. Is there any consistent pattern of words?  Look for examples of an author's intentional word choice.  Why did they choose one word over another?
10. Ask yourself the following question about the poem, "So what?"  What purpose does the poem have?