1. How to Take a Poem Apart (Birkett Style) A Ten-Step Approach

2. Step One Take a look at the poem. Don’t even read it first – just look at it. Ask yourself – what do I predict, just based on the way it looks. - free verse or closed form? - sonnet? - titled or untitled? - do I know the poet?

3. Step Two Read the poem. The only job you should give yourself on the first reading is to identify the subject. That’s it. What the poem about? Record your first thoughts and ideas about the piece. Then, identify the words/allusions/terms you don’t understand. Determine the areas that seem more challenging to you.

4. Step Three Is it a homework assignment or project? -Look up the words/allusions/terms you don’t understand Is it a test or quiz and you don’t have access to a dictionary or the internet -use your knowledge and understanding of language as well as the context provided to you by the other words in the stanza to infer what they mean

5. Step Four Identify and describe the structure Is it free verse or closed form? Do you recognize the structure? Is it a narrative poem or a lyrical poem? How many stanzas does it have? How is it divided up – what changes from stanza to stanza – what stays the same? Does it use the space of the page in a creative or atypical way? Is there a rhyme scheme or specific rhythm to it? **what do all of these elements contribute to the overall piece? It’s not simply noting the structure – it’s about making some points about why the poet chose to lay his/her piece out that way

6. Step Five Read the poem again Turn each complete thought/clause into a simplified version that makes sense to you (like we did with the Shakespeare sonnets and “Death, Be Not Proud”) **what does this do to illuminate the purpose and effect?

7. Step Six Read the poem again -Identify all of the elements of figurative language: -metaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, metonymy, and any figures of speech that ask you to see language/ideas in a more flexible way -Unpack each of them – what is the poet asking you to see/feel/understand? Do they create specific images, feelings, ideas, emotions, concepts, moods, etc.?

8. Step Seven Read the poem again -Identify all of the poetic devices i.e. alliteration, repetition, allusion, diction (connotation and denotation), enjambment, irony, paradox, onomatopoeia, allegory, etc. What does the speaker’s use of language (diction, syntax, dialect) contribute? What do the devices present contribute to the overall meaning and effect?

9. Step Eight Imagery and Symbolism Remember the difference between universal and text-specific symbols. Identify those symbolic elements of the poem and interpret them. What do they contribute to an understanding of the subject? Also, recall that imagery is diction that stimulates any, some, or all of the five sense. It can influence what we think about the subject, or produce a physical experience that influences the effect of the piece

10. Step Nine TONE What is the tone of the piece? - remember, you can only use words that describe the speaker’s attitude. Refer to that Emotion Wheel on the wiki for ideas, but don’t feel restricted to it – YOU determine the right word(s) Is the same tone sustained through the piece, or does it change? Explain. PROVE it with quotations from the poem What does that tone (attitude) contribute to the effect of the piece?

11. Step Ten Theme, Audience, and Effect OK, so go back to the subject. What is the THEME or angle/message of the poet regarding that subject? Make it a short and declarative sentence – it’s not just a one word sort of thing. What effect does he or she want you to experience in reading it? Are you meant to be moved, infuriated, sympathetic, motivated, devastated, educated, amused, etc.? Then, evaluate its success. Does it get its point and purpse across well or awkwardly. Explain.

12. “The Second Coming” W.B. Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

13. Questions to Consider: What does the “widening gyre” represent? The “falcon” and the “falconer”? What is falling apart? Comment on the speaker – who is he? How does he know all of these things? The “rough beast” mentioned toward the end – is it coming to save or punish? Explain why you think that it is in a “vision” the speaker sees him. How does the poem’s publication date (1920) influence an understanding of this poem? That being said, is it tied to its context, or could it be relevant at other times and places in history?