Compose an essay of 750 words and 5 or more paragraphs in which you offer your interpretation of a literary element in one of the assigned poems. Choose any poem from our Week 1 or Week 2 poetry reading list.
Tips for the Essay
Open your introduction with an engaging opener, such as a question, quotation from the poem, or interesting idea. Then, connect to the poem and mention the title and the author. End your introduction with a statement that interprets one literary element of the poem.
The body paragraphs should support your article. Present specific aspects of the poem that help to illustrate your points. Make sure to quote from the poem and analyze specific lines that support your argument. Typically, body paragraphs will contain at least two short quotations each as supporting evidence. Do not do any outside research. This should be only your own interpretation.
Include a strong concluding paragraph that summarizes your main points and explains the significance of the thesis. Finish this paragraph with a strong and satisfying ending.
Poems:
Dickinson:
“After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes”
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
“’Faith’ Is A Fine Invention”
“’Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers”
“I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died”
“I Like to See It Lap the Miles”
“Much Madness Is Divinest Sense”
“My Life Had Stood—A Loaded Gun”
“There’s A Certain Slant of Light”
“This Is My Letter to the World”
Frost:
“Birches”
“Design”
“Fire and Ice”
“Mending Wall”
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”
“For Once, Then, Something”
“Out, Out”
“The Road Not Taken”
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Brooks:
“The Mother”
“Sadie and Maud”
“A Song in the Front Yard”
“We Real Cool”
Hughes:
“Cross”
“Harlem”
“Negro”
“Suicide’s Note”
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
“Theme for English B”
Alacor, “‘Mexican’ Is Not a Noun”
Alvarez, “Dusting”
Bradstreet, “To My Dear and Loving Husband”
Browning, “How Do I Love Thee”
Burns, “Oh, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose”
Cummings, “Buffalo Bill”
Cummings, “Next to of Course God America I”
Cummings, “Since Feeling is First”
Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask”
Epada, “My Father as a Guitar”
Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays”
Heaney, “Digging”
Heaney, “Mid-Term Break”
Herrick, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”
Hopkins, “Spring and Fall”
Jarrell, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”
Komunyakaa, “Facing It”
MacLeish, “Ars Poetica”
Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
McKay, “The White City”
Meredith, “Dreams of Suicide”
Pastan, “Ethics”
Plath, “Daddy”
Pound, “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”
Randall, “Ballad of Birmingham”
Rich, “Living in Sin”
Robinson, “Miniver Cheevy”
Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz”
Shakespeare, “Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds”
Shakespeare, “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”
Shakespeare, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”
Smith, “Not Waving but Drowning”
Stevens, “Anecdote of the Jar”
Stevens, “The Snow Man”
Yeats, “The Second Coming”
Yeats, “When You Are Old”
