Have you ever stared blankly at a poem and felt out of place trying to analyze it? Not known how to respond – or even who to respond to? Many people have experienced that exact sense of intimidation. Maybe it happened to you in a high school English class or when a friend mentioned a poem that meant something to them, but left you feeling lost. Either way, poetry can seem like a puzzle to solve – a secret code pointing to a hidden meaning.

What if we broke down that barrier? Reading poetry then becomes experience to feel, rather than a single “right answer” to arrive at. To help you connect with a poem, use this simple three-step process:

1. First: Read for sound and rhythm.
2. Second: Track word choice, imagery, and speaker.
3. Third: Analyze the architecture and shifts.

Step 1: Read with Your Ears

As a first step, you might read through the poem without trying to analyze it. Here, the idea of poetry as an oral tradition comes alive – particularly if you read the poem out loud. People have read poetry aloud for thousands of years!

In finding where to pause, look for punctuation such as periods and commas. Natural pauses do not always occur at line breaks. As you notice these pauses and rhythms as you read, note how they make you feel. This feeling develops before you dive deeper into a possible interpretation.

• Do frequent pauses arouse a sense of urgency or anticipation?
• Do shorter or less frequent pauses draw out a sense of calm?
• Does the lack of rhyme give the poem a more casual or carefree feel?

Try It Now: “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks

This short poem is the ultimate tool for practicing natural pauses and rhythm. Notice how the word “We” hangs at the end of the lines, forcing a jazzy, breathless pause when read aloud:

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Step 2: Track Word Choice and Imagery

Your second time reading through the poem, focus on the word choice, imagery, and symbolism.

Perspective matters. When you come across the word “I,” realize that it does not always refer to the poet. It refers to the speaker of the poem. Think about the possible identity of the speaker and who the speaker might address through the poem (the “you”).

Going back to word choice and imagery, note any recurring words or images. Does a certain object, color, setting, weather condition, person, group, animal, or anything else come up multiple times? What emotions do these evoke? How might this connect to the feelings stirred up by the pauses and rhythms from the first reading in step one?

Try It Now: “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams

This 16-word poem provides a rich chance to look for anchor images. Its short length forces you to slow down and take in a single, vivid picture:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

Ask yourself: Why does “so much depend” on these everyday objects? What do the rain and the contrast of red and white bring to mind?

By the way, feel free to also look up the meanings of any unfamiliar words. The multiple meanings words sometimes take on can offer some insight.

Step 3: Analyze the Architecture and the “Turn”

As a third step, you might focus on the overall structure of the poem. Some poems take on the loose form of free verse. In this case, the poem does not adhere to any particular rhyme scheme or predetermined rhythm rules (aside from, of course, the natural rhythm we talked about before). Other poems to fit a particular form, such as sonnet.

Again, feel free to look up any unfamiliar forms. Do these boundaries, or the lack of boundaries, add to the overall feeling of the poem? Why might the poet have chosen them?

Aside from form, look for any shifts in the direction of the poem. This might show up as a change in perspective or mood. It often comes with a marker such as “but” or “yet.” Once again, how does this change, if it exists, make you feel?

Try It Now: “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost

This poem gives readers a perfect chance to search for a dramatic perspective shift. Watch how line 4 completely changes the direction of the piece:

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

The word “But” pivots the poem instantly from celebrating the beautiful gold of early spring to mourning how quickly time passes and decays.

Trust Your Own Interpretation

When it comes to poetry, one single right interpretation rarely exists – only one you can support with references to the poem itself, examples, and the emotions the poem brings up.

In some cases, background information may provide the context in which the poet wrote the poem, offering insight into their intending meaning. Either way, feel free to form your own interpretation. What does the poem remind you of in your own life?

As a bonus tip, it might help to not only analyze each line or stanza individually, but the overall context of the poem as a whole. How might the images or symbols in toward the beginning of the poem communicate with those at the end?

Oh, and have fun!

Have you ever wondered what makes poetry…poetry? One day in class years ago, my professor sprang that question on me. I could not condense the answer enough to fit it down through the bottom of my mind and out through my mouth. Some say poetry should appeal to people across generations, general enough to lend a helping hand to any corner of the human condition in whatever way necessary, a “jack of all trades” of sorts. Others say it holds up a unique lens, showing us ordinary objects and happenings in fresh ways. Many agree that such a lens consists of concrete images made up of words arranged in any style at the poet’s discretion. Lines can rhyme or not. They can have rhythm and meter or not. Poets may write them formally in a style reminiscent of feather pens and inkwells. Or, they might pen their poems casually, as someone inspired at the end of a beach day. I say it also goes like this. You come home tired after a long day, ready to crash. Yet, something inside you begs to come out. It bubbles up like a slow rise of lava. You sit down to write, yet it does not spill onto the page right away. Something holds you back. What will others think? What will YOU think? Finally, you let the words come. You finish, tempted to crumple up the paper and throw it at the wall. Maybe your writing does not embarrass you in front of others, but in front of yourself. That, my friend, makes something poetry.

-You have a hard time taking criticism because everything you produce feels like an extension of yourself and the way your inner world works.
-You love emotional privacy and freedom combined. Having someone try to force emotional intimacy with you makes about as much sense as someone trying to force physical intimacy with you. The thought of being outwardly touchy-feely or crying around others truly baffles you.
-You created a scrapbook of watercolor paintings called “The Loves of My Life,” dedicated to some of your values, with a word such as “introspection” or “creativity” literally painted into each image. Yet it’s still not an exhaustive list of everything you value.
-You’ve had more crushes on fictional characters than on real people and used to have some of them as imaginary boyfriends. You’re also trying to learn to say “I’m in love with a fictional character” in multiple languages, and it’s really a reflection of your love for the values that characters can represent. In particular, you have a soft spot for characters who stay true to themselves, their morals, and their vision in the face of adversity.
-You’re a Christian yet are always overthinking whether you’re truly a good one.
-You have a special love for holiday traditions and feel nostalgic for times like Christmas during childhood.
-Even distant building and street lights in the evening have a certain nostalgic quality to them.
-You like to fill your senses, but sometimes have trouble truly being in the moment because you’re haunted by certain past hurts. You can easily relive the experiences.
-You write personification poems. In fact, it can be as if each object is in some sort of dormant state and the writer’s job is to wake it up and give it some sort of life.
-You love psychology and personality theory, but feel you would never make it as a therapist because you’re so focused on how you feel about things personally. One of your favorite phrases is “But that’s wrong…”
-You feel selfish for not being able to give more to people in need.
-You keep your room organized, but it could be partly because you see it as an extension of yourself and you’re always systematizing your identity.
-At the same time, your routine isn’t always organized.
-You have strong interests you get absorbed in, but topics that don’t feel personally meaningful are hard to concentrate on.
-You’re not crazy about being in leadership positions and would hate to give out hurtful criticism.
-You HATE bossiness and insensitivity and phrases like “get over it.” Again, you’re all about emotional freedom and privacy combined.
-You have a strong sense of what makes you feel like yourself, whether it’s a way of talking, acting, dressing, or whatever.
-You know yourself better than anyone else knows you, yet you have trouble drawing a firm conclusion about your personality type because you see so many different characteristics in yourself.

-You feel somewhat guilty for being so self-focused, but listing out your likes/dislikes feels like a job you were born to do.
-You love people, but need plenty of alone time to get lost in your thoughts and interests.
-You have a certain technical side, but you know you’re really a poet at heart.
-You love your freedom and have a strong desire to be in control of yourself. No one should ever think they can control, manipulate, talk down to, or micromanage you.
-You love to travel and see new places, and one of your goals is to visit all fifty states and all seven continents.
-You decorate homemade cards for your parents on their birthdays.
-You spent your whole childhood semi-secretly pretending to be from some other world you made up. You even had imaginary friends in it, some of which were fictional characters. Looking back, maybe it was a reflection of how you felt, but in a good way.
-You’ve been told you have a way of seeing through to the heart of the matter and seeing both sides of an argument.
-You love animals, especially cats.
-You wish you could travel to other times to see what they were like.
-You wish you could spend a different day as each of the personality types just to gain an even deeper appreciation for how they see the world differently.
-You don’t want to let go of certain possessions from your childhood, especially dolls you used to play “character games.” They’re special to you because they were used in the imaginary world you made up for yourself.
-It’s almost as if you’re on a symbolic tightrope. On one hand, every bit of negative feedback you’ve gotten, every misunderstanding you’ve been through, and every mistake you’ve made are pulling you down. On the other hand, just being unique like everyone else is more than enough to lift you up and have you keep on going. You wouldn’t have it any other way.