Poetry Analysis
§ Analyzing a Poem: When you read a poem carefully, you might use this checklist as your strategy for beginning analysis: theme, structure (composition, arrangement), mood (the attitude of the poet toward his subject), tone (the attitude of the poet toward his audience), and figures of speech. Sometimes mood and tone seem indistinguishable. Try to be precise in finding adjective(s) to convey your sense of mood and tone.
§ From Structure to Theme: Consider how the argument of the poem develops. Divide it into sections corresponding to steps in the development of a theme. Look for what creates tension in the poem and for what resolves that tension. What pleasures does the poem offer? Answering that question may take you outside formalist analysis, but is also likely to take you into the poet's use of figures of speech. You should not get too committed to a statement of theme until you have done all your work of reading and analysis, but as you work out the structure, or arrangement of the matter of the poem, you will be moving toward some general notions of the theme.
§ Literary Devices: Make sure you question everything!! Think to yourself, “Does this object or statement mean anything else besides the obvious?” Look at imagery, personifications, color, word choice, similes and metaphors, organization and tone. Again, talk about possible meaning and ideas with your group, most times it takes a lot of analysis to really get to a poem’s meaning. Keep questioning and have fun!
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“On the Subway,” by Sharon Olds
Directions:
1. Read the poem aloud in your group.
2. Identify the contrasts that develop both portraits in the poem. (create a T chart)
3. Discuss/list the insights the narrator comes to as a result of the experience.
4. As a group, list some of the important poetic devices that Olds employs to convey her meaning.
5. Underline lines that contain those poetic devices.
6. Analyze the poem using the TPCASTT format.
7. As a group, complete this sentence (more than one meaning statement might result):
Based on our analysis we think the poem means_________________________
because_________________________________________________________.
8. What larger questions/ideas about society does this poem raise for you?
“On The Subway” by Sharon Olds
The boy and I faced each other.
His feet are huge, in black sneakers
laced with white in a complex pattern like a
set of international scars. We are stuck on
opposite sides of the car, a couple of
molecules stuck in a rod of light
rapidly moving through darkness. He has the
casual cold look of a mugger,
alert under hooded lids. He is wearing
red, like the inside of the body
exposed. I am wearing dark fur, the
whole skin of an animal taken and
used. I look at his raw face,
he looks at my fur coat, and I don't
know if I am in his power-
he could take my coat so easily, my
briefcase, my life-
or if he is in my power, the way I am
living off his life, eating the steak
he does not eat, as if I am taking
the food from his mouth. And he is black
and I am white, and without meaning or
trying to I must profit from his darkness,
the way he absorbs the murderous beams of the
nation's heart, as black cotton
absorbs the heat of the sun and holds it. There is
no way to know how easy this
white skin makes my life, this
life he could take so easily and
break across his knee like a stick the way his
own back is being broken, the
rod of his soul that at birth was dark and
fluid and rich as the heart of a seedling
ready to thrust up into any available light.