Poetry Essay #2: Themes of Love Family, Friendship, and Nature in Contemporary American Poetry

I. Purpose

This assignment will help you practice the following skills that are important for your success in this course and offer knowledge important beyond the contexts of this assignment, this course, and this college:

• Analyze significant primary texts as forms of cultural and creative expression. 

• Explain the ways in which humanistic or artistic expression reflects the culture and values of its time and place. 

• Frame a comparative context to critically assess the ideas, forces, and values that shape the texts. 

• Analyze how an established American poet addresses one of the following issues in their work: love, family, friendship, and the examination of the natural world.

Skills: The purpose of this assignment is to help you practice the following skills that are essential to your success in this course, school, field of poetry, and in professional life beyond school:

• Analyze literary texts

• Apply an understanding of essential poetic techniques

• Evaluate the social and cultural merits of an important work of literature

• Exercise critical thinking skills

• Research college-level sources

Knowledge: This assignment will also help you to become familiar with the following important content knowledge in this discipline:

• Articulate how a poet’s use of word choice contributes to tone and theme

• Identify how poets use essential literary elements such as simile, metaphor, and imagery

• Describe how poets use sonic elements such as rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and consonance

II. Task

Write a 1000-word essay on a poem you’ve read that deals with one of the following issues: love, family, friendship, or nature. The essay must either paraphrase or quote from two reliable, college-level sources of research (see below for a list of approved websites and suggested databases from the college library). Scholarly sources can comment on the poet, the particular poem you’ve chosen, or on a particular poetic technique. Use of Wikipedia and similar general knowledge websites is not permitted.

Remember that it is important to quote directly from the poem in support of your observations. All quotations must be integrated, cited, and quoted correctly. This document lays out MLA’s rules for formatting and citing poetry in your text. For you auditory/visual learners, this video will help ensure you’re following MLA’s rules properly. Your essay must also contain a Works Cited page. 

Please remember that the elements of poetry you choose to discuss depend upon the poem itself. While one paper might have to spend a significant amount of time discussing imagery and metaphor, another essay about a different poem might focus on sonic elements of a poem like assonance/consonance, alliteration and rhyme. Allow the elements of the poem and its primary theme(s) to decide what you will focus on in your essay.

Your essay must have an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. It must also have a thesis statement; you are writing a literary analysis, so your essay must make an argument addressing how the poet employs the elements of poetry to address its central issue and convey key themes. Present your thesis in the introduction, then develop each of your points in support of that thesis. Do not spend time too much time on biographical information beyond the introduction—stay focused on the poem.

Your analysis should consider each of the following:

1. What point or theme is the poem is trying to convey? It may be helpful to write out a summary of the poem before beginning your essay.

2. What is the poem’s structure and how does it contribute to conveying it central theme(s)?

3. What poetic techniques is the poet using, and how do they contribute to conveying the poem’s central theme(s)? Be sure to consider imagery, symbolism, simile, metaphor, and irony.

4. What are the sonic elements of the poem? Do they contribute to conveying the poem’s central themes? Be sure to consider rhyme, alliteration, consonance, and assonance.
   
   

Approved websites and suggested library databases:

• The Poetry Foundation

• The Academy of American Poets

The following can be found on the NSCC library page under “Articles and Databases”. And don’t be afraid to try the library’s chat function if you need additional assistance:

• The Gale Literature Resource Center

• Academic Search Premier
  
  

III. Criteria for Success

A successful essay will:

• Clearly explain the issue the poem is addressing

• Offer a brief summary of the poem

• Analyze the poem’s central theme(s)

• Demonstrate an understanding of the poem’s structure

• Demonstrate an understanding of poetic technique

• Support its analysis using specific examples from the poem

• Supplement its analysis with 2 college-level sources

• Use correct MLA 9^th ed. format for in-text citations and a list of Works Cited.

• Use academic English and be carefully proofread/spell-checked.