Poetry Craft Lesson

Deepening

Poetry Essay :Teacher Directions

Poets Choices Are Deliberate
Or
Students Aren't Entitled To Opinions-
They Have To Have Ideas Instead

Procedure
So, for this assignment let's continue with the Plath poem and the Christopher
poem. Example essays, written by students, one for each of the poems, follow this
assignment.
Based on the previous assignments, the students have annotated the poems
searching for patterns of motif, image and figurative language.
The next step is to get them to put these pieces together and build to an
interpretation. In order to do this, they have to connect the dots of some of the
deliberate patterns that the poet has used to communicate the poem. In order to do
this my students form theses using the equation: Technique---Idea= Effect. That
is to say, the speaker creates ideas in the mind of the reader deliberately using
poetic techniques; these ideas affect the reader either rationally or emotionally.
Think of it as the How?--What?=Why?. How do poets do what they do? --through
the deliberate choices found in their choice of techniques. What do they do?-- ideas.
Why do they do it? to affect the reader.

So look at the theses from the two sample papers.

1. The uses of these vibrant adjectives versus sinister adjectives describe the
contrasting feeling of happiness and sadness within the poem.

2. The speaker contrasts whimsical and bleak imagery, diction of buoyancy and
burden, and the depiction of time as frozen and on-going, to illustrate the
impossibility of pure and constant bliss; this causes the reader to reflect on the
fleeting nature of joy and ones ability to be happy despite joys ephemerality.

In the first one the idea and effect blend together and the idea, as a result is not
as strong as it should be. The paper is still solid as they really discuss the language
and motifs of the poem quite well.
Clearly, the second thesis is stronger than the first. Each part of technique--
idea=effect can be clearly identified and it is easy to see what each topic sentence
will be. To prove the topic sentences, and therefore the thesis, the student will have
to mine the technique, interpret it and clearly express ideas about the poem. The
entire point is to push them to make straight lines out of abstraction. They cannot
say that the poem means whatever they think or feel it does; those are simple
opinions. They have to prove their meanings on the foundation of text. Those proven
meanings, are ideas.

Papers follow.