Rowan College at Gloucester County English Poetry Paper

Poems: A poetic explication follows the order of lines/stanzas in the poem itself, examining words, phrases, and structures in detail. The explication includes your main thesis/argument about the poem and its meaning or significant. It can include discussion of the speaker in the poem; the situation or setting; the poem’s form, rhyme, meters; its use of figurative or metaphorical language; its tone, and ultimately, its overall effect. It may refer to the poem’s context, but it focuses primarily on the poem itself. There is a poetry paper example on pg 505.

Poetic lines are cited by line number in the poem. Example: (2-3), or (5) refers to the lines in a poem

1 Poetry – Introduction to Poetry (767), Richard Cory (735), The Unknown Citizen (Link), Kubla Khan (1134), War is Kind (Link)

2 Poetry – Poetry – Read: Read all Langston Hughes poems (1073-1075), Ballad of the Landlord (778) and Theme for English B (Link), If We Must Die (1077)

3 Poetry – Emily Dickinson: All poems between (1021-1025) and Because I could not stop for Death (872)

4 Poetry – Robert Frost poems (892 & 1143), This Be the Verse (849), Speech to the Young (Link), Nirvana (Link)