Poetry, Analysis, and More (Oh my!)

Editors:
Valerie Le
Rebekah Lindsey
Katie Huffert
Claire Borecki
Keenan Warble 

As our class has gone through our poetry unit, each one of us had chosen a poem which we memorized, recited, and analyzed. We've done this to better understand how a writer can use various literary techniques to change the tone and other devices of a poem or to enhance the reader's captivation and interpretation. Below are a few selected pieces of our class's poetry explications. Click on the link after the sample to view the full explications.  

Catherine Gorey--Tone's Philosophy

In “Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the speaker’s tone changes throughout the poem from whimsical persuasion to assertion to questioning.  The tone change throughout the poem illustrates the complexity of unrequited love.  The imagery of the whimsical persuasion tone and the metaphor of the assertion tone show how desperately the speaker wants to be with his beloved and have them return his love.  However the rhetorical questions, specifically the last line of the poem, are the speaker questioning why he loves someone who does not love him back and what his love is worth if it is not returned. Read More

Susie Alptekin-- Conveyed Tone

In the poem “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou, the tone is primarily reflected by the poet’s perspective on life.  She is one of the most well-known African American poets and this influences the tone of the poem.  This poem is meant to be heard by the people who were never affected by slavery, or any real hardship, in order to teach them about the devastating situation those thousands of caged birds were in.  The critical tone throughout the poem alternates from two perspectives, the condescending free bird the and the morose caged bird, in each stanza. Read More

Peter Case-- God is a Mystery

Religion has always been and endeavor in which everyone tries to interpret what god believes we should do. The speaker indicates that God is a benevolent being and that he is often misinterpreted by his followers. The speaker conveys this meaning through the use of the active versus the passive voice. When speaking of war, the speaker does not use the assertive first person pronoun “I” that he uses for most of the rest of the poem. This suggests that the couplet about battle and war being his minions is in fact what the people on earth think about him, while the parts of the poem that include the active voice are the facts about himself. For example, in the first stanza, God describes himself as the mother of sorrows and the ender of grief, a contradictory statement. In those two line he uses the active phrase, “I am…” for both descriptions meaning that he wants us to see that he is complicated. He continues the assertive first person through the first stanza. However, he forsakes the active voice and instead turns to passive in the third stanza, in which he speculates about his own physical attributes. I interpret this as the people on earth arguing about what god looks like, when in reality, the beauty of god cannot be found in physical attributes, as god has no physical form. God simply is in everything therefore is complicated. Read More

Claire Borecki-- “After Working Sixty Hours Again for What Reason”: Finding Humor, Absurdity and Truth in Poetry

When asked to imagine a successful man, most people would imagine a clean-shaven, well groomed one. However, the well-groomed man in this poem does not have any food on the table- his appearance does not make him successful. Read More

JP Documet--“Light Shining Out of Darkness”: Preaching Hope and Forcing Faith

The poem “Light Shining Out of Darkness” by William Cowper is about a clerical speaker talking about his awe towards God and tells the reader to have faith and confidence in God and His work. Although the speaker is not directly talking to someone, it is clear that the audience is meant to be people who are hesitant about God or have little faith in Him. The author’s background as a devout evangelical Christian and association with John Newton, as well as his past doubts in God, inspired him to write a poem about God’s plan and trusting and believing in God. In this poem, the speaker conveys an earnest and didactic tone through his word choice and structure.

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Tom Sulger-- "The Clouded Morning": A Sinister Sonnet

“The Clouded Morning,” by Jones Very, is a short sonnet describing the sinister effects of loneliness and depression through the metaphor of a cloudy day.  The speaker appears to be a middle-aged man giving a gloomy description of the morning landscape around him, which seems to be a farm-type setting, with a city in the distance.  The audience of the poem is projected as anyone who is trapped under the same veil of gloom and depression that the speaker references. The poem acts as a message to the audience, as the speaker sends out a desperate effort to communicate with anyone who is feeling the same sense of isolation as him.  Overall, the central theme of the poem is the speaker’s feelings of hopelessness, as shown by the man who finds himself lost in a state of depression and can’t find his way out. Read More