Poems are not puzzles to be cracked. What you are required to do when you write about poetry is to arrive at a genuine and individual personal response to something which is carefully crafted in language.
Poets are masters of language. They choose words more deliberately and consciously than is usual. After all, language is their craft. However, although we cannot all be poets, it is important to realize that what poets do is not alien to us. We are all immersed in language. We all experience the world in language. We all seek self-expression. To express exactly what you mean is not always easy (just as poetry is not always easy), but it is always satisfying and rewarding.
Loading… Loading… Ted Hughes was a poet laureate until his death in 1984 and published a number of poems. Hughes said the poem was not about cruelty – he only tried to reveal the hawks a ‘natural way of thinking’ Summary In this poem,a hawk is imagined as speaking and Read more…
Loading… Loading… An Introduction by Kamala Das SUMMARY Kamala Das’ poem ‘An Introduction’ appeared in her first collection of poems, ‘Summer in Calcutta.’ In her poem, she speaks in the voice of a child, rebelling against the expectations and dictates of a patriarchal society that asks her to ‘fit in’ Read more…
Loading… Loading… How Poems are Made – A Discredited View GENRE: Poetry TITLE: HOW POEMS ARE MADE – A DISCREDITED VIEW AUTHOR: Alice Walker SUMMARY OF THE POEM This poem is a possible explanation for why people write poems. Walker explains that a poem is a place to express the Read more…
Loading… Loading… Mending Wall By Robert Frost About the Poem The image at the heart of “Mending Wall” is arresting: two men meeting on terms of civility and neighborliness to build a barrier between them. They do so out of tradition, out of habit. Yet the very earth conspires against Read more…
Loading… Loading… Sonnet Interpretation: The Poetry of Death Explanation in John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X Holy Sonnet 10 by John Donne conveys its speaker’s attitude towards death. This speaker believes that death should not hold its current place in the human imagination as something “mighty and dreadful” (line 2.) Not Read more…
Loading… Loading… Opportunity by John James Ingalls John James Ingalls was a US senator from Kansas. Born in Middleton, Massachusetts in 1833, he graduated from Williams College in 1855. He was admitted to the bar in 1857 and later took an active interest in politics, becoming a State Senator in Read more…
Loading… Loading… AUNT JENNIFER’S TIGERS ABOUT THE AUTHOR Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012), American poet, essayist and feminist. One of the most widely read and influenced poets of the second half of the 20th century. She talks about a woman’s experiences in her married life. She has attempted to Read more…
Loading… Loading… The Principal Poetic Works of Shelley A. Early Poems (i) Queen Mab (1813) – This poem attacks Christianity for professing love while inciting its followers to religious intolerance. The corrupting influences of kings and priests are also exposed in the poem, and the Golden Age is prophesied. It Read more…
Loading… Loading… Stanza-Wise Summary of Dejection: An Ode Stanza 1 (Lines 1-20) Well! If the poet, who wrote the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, was correct in his forecast of weather, this night, which is so calm at this time, will not pass without being disturbed by winds Read more…
Loading… Loading… Introduction of Kubla Khan Written in 1797, ‘Kubla Khan’ was first published in 1816 at the request of Lord Byron. The book contained an ‘introduction’ which sheds light on the circumstances that led the poet to write a poem: ‘In the summer of 1797, the Author, then ill-healthy, Read more…