When writing about poetry, you want to discuss the
structure, literary/poetic elements and literary/poetic, techniques. Firstly, in
structure, along with identifying the genre and sub-genre, e.g., lyric and sonnet, you
will want to analyze the rhythm and the meter, which when added together create the
metric pattern, e.g., trochaic tetrameter. You will also identify the rhyme scheme;
e.g., abab cddc. You will also discuss the structure of stanzas and individual verses
[verse(s) is the poetic term for line(s)]. These considerations also include blank verse
and free verse and other variations on rhythm, meter and
rhyme.
Secondly, you will analyze and discuss the literary
device of literary elements, although when applied to poetry these are called poetic
devices and poetic elements. Some poetic elements are theme; speaker/narrator: i.e.,
identify whose is the poetic voice; tone; mood, synonymously called atmosphere; and the
metaphoric basis of the poem. In poetry, there may or may not be something like a plot.
A narrative poem or a dramatic monologue as developed by Robert Browning might have some
kind of a plot structure. However, poetry does have the progression of ideas and many
kinds of poetry have a diametric turn in the topic, such as sonnets
do.
Thirdly, you will identify and analyze the poetic
device of poetic techniques. Poetic techniques differ from poetic elements, though both
are poetic devices, in that they are optional additions used at the discretion and
choice of the poet. For example, aside from the prevailing poetic metaphor employed in
the construction of the poem, the use of metaphor and simile is up to the poet's choice.
Some poetic techniques are similes, personification, metonymy, irony, sarcasm (distinct
from irony by tone and intent), diction, and synecdoche.
As
to interpreting a poem, each of the points discussed above, structure, elements and
techniques, will reveal the meaning of the poem to you. Once you see the component parts
from theme to structure (e.g., underlying metaphor; diametrical turn in topic) to
diction to similes and all the rest, you will begin to see the deeper aspects of meaning
through the clarification of ideas, the juxtaposition of ideas, the multifaceted meaning
of ideas, the expansion of ideas, etc. Remember that structure plays a big part in
facilitating the interpretation of poetry, similar to the importance of structure in
fiction, as per one example, when the story is structured in a
frame.
