Poetry Commentary?!

[Unregistered]

Hi people!

First of all, I would like to say that I'm very greatful for all the help I can get here in this forum, and from you all. I'm defenitely in need of help at the moment...

As my final exam gets closer and closer for every day, I find it more and more vital to get help with writing poem analysis' which I'm struggling awfully with this year. My creative pieces are always highly appreciated by my teacher, but my analytical ones aren't, by far, as good. Therefore, I would like to ask someone if he or she could briefly, shortly, answer my question about how to excellently structure a poem analyze.

--- My teacher often says that my papers are like a shotgun-blazed (pretty funny actually). What he means is that my analysis' are poorly organized, but how do you actually organize a poem well? He doesn't seem to be able to explain that to me. Anyway, should I start talking about every stylistic devise the poet uses on line one, and then do the same, line after line, OR should I insead first talk about a specific device (e.g. imagery) the poet uses in the entire poem. For example:

"On the first line, the poet utilizes imagery, symbolism, hyperbole. on the second line she uses metaphores, diction, irony, sarcasm" >>OR<< " The author uses symbolism on line one, five and nine. he does it because ....... "she employs imagery on linetwo three and nine" etc.

I hope you understand what I mean. If not, let me know and i'll try to explain it differently.
Thanks!

 

[susiedqq]

I would describe the general theme first. What the poet is trying to say. What emotions you felt just reading it.

Then I would describe the general writing style.

Then I would describe the writing methods used. (detailed description of imagery, metaphors, etc., stanza by stanza.)

Last, I would summarize the theme and what the poem meant to you (if anything). You could critique it at this point, too.

 

[mik3l]

I would describe the general theme first. What the poet is trying to say. What emotions you felt just reading it.

Then I would describe the general writing style.

Then I would describe the writing methods used. (detailed description of imagery, metaphors, etc., stanza by stanza.)

Last, I would summarize the theme and what the poem meant to you (if anything). You could critique it at this point, too.

Thanks for your answer.
I see the logic in what you are saying, it makes sense, thanks!
Only one thing though, when saying "writing style"; do you mean the genre of the poem, or do you mean the mood in which the poem is written, or are you talking about the tense?

Another thing which also has to do with the organization. Where, in what part of my paper, am I supposed to analyse the diction that is being used. For example; One uses "Papa" when refering to one's dad. One can easily conclude that the persona feels affection towards his father as the word "Papa" has a more positive and warmer connotation than the word "father". Where Am I supposed to put these kinds of comments?

One last thing; where am I supposed to bring up the graphical layout of the poem? (e.g. How many line in each paragraph, how many words in each line, generally how the poem is graphically structed, if every line has about the same amount of words etc....") Should this be done before everythin else or in the middle etc..

I'm right now working on a response to poem "Piano" by D.H. Lawrence, an excellent poem, as a matter of fact. Not too complex actually, fairly straight forward, you should all read it!

Thanks,
Mike