how to write a research paper on poetry

Poetry & Poets

Explore the beauty of poetry – discover the poet within

How To Write A Poetry Research Paper

Introduction

Writing a poetry research paper can be an intimidating task for students. Even for experienced writers, the process of writing a research paper on poetry can be daunting. However, there are a few helpful tips and guidelines that can help make the process easier. Writing a research paper on poetry requires the student to have an analytical understanding of the poet or poet’s work and to utilize multiple sources of evidence in order to make a convincing argument. Before starting the research paper, it is important to properly analyze the poem and to understand the form, structure, and language of the poem.

The process of writing a research paper requires numerous steps, beginning with researching the poet and poem. If a poet is unknown, the research process must be started by learning about their biography, other works, and their impact on society. With online databases, libraries, and archives the research process can move quickly. It is important to carefully document sources for later use when creating bibliographies for the paper. Once the process of researching the poem has been completed, the next step is to analyze the poem itself. It is important for the student to read the poem carefully in order to understand the meaning, as well as its tone, imagery, and metaphors. Furthermore, analyzing other poems by the same poet can help students observe patterns, trends, or elements of a poet’s work.

Outlining and Structure

Outlining the research paper is just as important as analyzing the poem itself. Many students make the mistake of not taking enough time to craft a detailed outline that follows the structure of the paper. An effective outline will make process of writing the research paper more efficient, allowing for ease of transitions between sections of the paper. When writing the paper, it is important to think through the structure of the paper and how to make a strong argument. Support for the argument should be based on concrete evidence, such as literary criticism, literary theory, and close readings of the poem. It is essential to have a clear argument that is consistent throughout the body of the paper.

Citing Sources

When writing a research paper it is also important to cite all sources that are used. The style used for citing sources will depend on the style guide indicated by the professor or the school’s guidelines. Whether using MLA, APA, or Chicago style, it is important to adhere to the style guide indicated in order to have a complete and well-written paper.

Once the research and outlining is complete, the process of drafting a poetry research paper can begin. When constructing the first draft, it is especially useful to re-read the poem and to recall evidence that supports the argument made about the poem. Additionally, it is important to proofread and edit the first draft in order to make the argument more clear and to check for any grammar or spelling errors.

Writing a research paper on poetry does not have to be a difficult task. By taking the time to properly research, analyze, and structure the paper, the process of writing a successful poetry research paper becomes easier. Following these steps— researching the poet, understanding the poem itself, outlining the paper, citing sources, and drafting the paper— will ensure a great and thorough paper is prepared.

Using Imagery and Metaphor

The use of imagery and metaphor is an essential element when writing poetry. Imagery can be used to provide vivid descriptions of scenes and characters, while metaphor can be used to create deeper meanings and analogies. Understanding the use of imagery and metaphor can help to break down the poem and discover hidden meanings. Students researching poetry should pay special attentions to the poetic devices used to further the story or allusions to other works, such as classical mythology. Paying close attention to the language, metaphors, and imagery used by the poet can help to uncover the true meaning of the poem. By breaking down the element of the poem and focusing on individual elements, it is much easier to make valid conclusions about the poem and its author.

Understanding Rhyme and Meter

Rhyme and meter are two of the most important and complex elements of poetry. These two poetic techniques are used to help the poet structure their poem to provide rhythm and flow. Most commonly, rhyme and meter help to provide emphasis to certain words or phrases to give them additional meaning. When analyzing poetry, it is important to pay attention to the written rhyme schemes and meter of the poem. There are various patterns of rhyme, such as couplets, tercets, and quatrains. Meter, usually governed by iambs and trochees, can give the poem an added sense of rhythm to further emphasize certain words, phrases, or thoughts.

Exploring Themes

Themes are the central ideas behind a poem. The themes of a poem can be subtle and can be found in the language and images used. Exploring the poem through a thematic analysis can help to identify the true meaning of the poem and the message that the poet is conveying. When researching a poem, it is important to identify the primary theme of the poem and to look for evidence in the poem that can be used to support the claim. By paying attention to the language of a poem, students can uncover the deeper meanings within the poem and can move past the literal interpretation of the poem.

Analyzing Discourse and Context

In addition to the written aspects of a poem, it is important to consider the historical and social context of the poem. The context of the poem can be used to further understand its deeper meanings and implications. Collingwood’s theory of re-enactment can be used to reconstruct the context of a poem in order to gain a deeper understanding of the poem. When researching a poem, it is important to consider the the time period in which the poem was written, the author’s other works, and the broader literary context of the poem. Examining the discourse used by the poet can help to uncover the true message of the poem and the impact on society at the time.

Finding Inspiration

When researching poetry, it is important for the student to find inspiration in the form of other authors, critics, and theorists. Studying the works of other authors can provide valuable insight into a poem and can inform the student’s own interpretations. In addition to studying critics and theorists, the student should also look to other poets and authors as sources of inspiration. The student can explore the works of similar poets or authors to learn how they use their poetic elements in their work. This can help students to gain insight into the language, imagery, and themes present in the poem being researched.

Minnie Walters

Minnie Walters is a passionate writer and lover of poetry. She has a deep knowledge and appreciation for the work of famous poets such as William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and many more. She hopes you will also fall in love with poetry!

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How to write a poetry essay

• August 26, 2023

Whether you love literature or are just curious, this guide will help you understand, enjoy, and talk about poetry. So, let’s start exploring the world of lines and symbols, where each one tells a story to discover.

Here are the steps on writing a poetry essay.

Choose a poem

The first step is, of course, to choose a poem to write your essay . 

It should be one that you find interesting, thought-provoking, or emotionally resonant. It’s important to select a poem that you can engage with and analyze effectively.

• Choose a poem that genuinely captures your interest. Look for poems that evoke emotions, thoughts, or curiosity when you read them.
• Consider the themes addressed in the poem. It should offer ample material for analysis.

When choosing a poem

So for this guide, let’s choose Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” You’ll see a short excerpt of this poem for your understanding. 

Poem example for poetry essay

Because i couldn not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson

       Because I could not stop for Death –        He kindly stopped for me –        The Carriage held but just Ourselves –        And Immortality.        We slowly drove – He knew no haste        And I had put away        My labor and my leisure too,        For His Civility –        We passed the School, where Children strove        At Recess – in the Ring –        We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –        We passed the Setting Sun –        The poem continues....

This poem is intriguing due to its exploration of mortality, the afterlife, and eternity. The imagery and language in the poem provide ample material for analysis, making it a suitable choice for a comprehensive essay.

After carefully choosing the poem that interests you, understanding the poem is the biggest key to writing an effective and nice poetry essay.

Understand the poem

Reading the poem several times to grasp its meaning is the most important part of a good analysis. You must first analyze the structure, rhyme scheme , meter and literary tools used in the poem.

For a solid understanding, you should:

• Read the poem multiple times to familiarize yourself with its content. Each reading may reveal new insights.
• Identify the central themes or messages the poem conveys.
• Study the rhyme scheme and meter (rhythmic pattern) of the poem.
• Consider how the structure, including its stanzas, lines, and breaks, contributes to the poem's meaning and impact.

For example

Remember, understanding the poem thoroughly is the foundation for a well-informed analysis. Take your time to grasp the poem’s various elements before moving on to the next steps in your essay.

Now that we have a clear understanding of the poem, let’s move into writing the introduction. 

Write a catchy introduction

• Begin with an attention-grabbing hook sentence that piques the reader's interest.
• Provide the necessary information about the poem and its author. Mention the poet's name and title of the poem.
• Offer some context about the poem's time period, literary movement, or cultural influences.
• Present your thesis statement , which outlines the main argument or focus of your essay.

Poetry essay introduction example

Introduction

Thesis statement for poetry essays

A thesis statement is a clear and concise sentence or two that presents the main argument or point of your essay . It provides a roadmap for your reader, outlining what they can expect to find in your essay.

In the case of a poetry essay, your thesis statement should capture the central message, themes, or techniques you’ll be discussing in relation to the poem.

Why is the thesis important for a poetry essay?

By reading your thesis statement, your audience should have a clear idea of what to expect from your poem analysis essay.

When creating a thesis statement, keep these in mind: 

• Start by identifying the key elements of the poem that you want to discuss. These could be themes, literary devices, emotions conveyed, or the poet's intentions.
• Based on the key elements you've identified, formulate a central argument that encapsulates your main analysis. What is the poem trying to convey? What are you trying to say about the poem?
• Your thesis should be specific and focused. Avoid vague or broad statements. Instead, provide a clear direction for your analysis.

Poetry essasy thesis statement example

....(introduction starts) ....(introduction continues) ....(introduction continues) In "Because I could not stop for Death," Emily Dickinson employs vivid imagery, personification, and an unconventional perspective on mortality to explore the transcendence of death and the eternity of the soul. Thesis statement, which is usually the last sentence of your introduction

Analyze language and imagery

Language and image analysis in poetry involves a close examination of the words, phrases and literary devices used by the poet. In this step you must uncover the deeper layers of meaning, emotion and sensory experiences conveyed by the poet’s choice of language and imagery.

Why language and imagery?

• Start by identifying and listing the literary devices present in the poem. These could include metaphors, similes, personification, symbolism, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and more.
• For each identified device, explain its significance. How does it contribute to the poem's meaning, mood, or tone?
• Analyze how the literary devices interact with the context of the poem. How do they relate to the themes, characters, or situations presented in the poem?
• Discuss how the use of specific language and imagery influences the reader's emotional response and understanding of the poem.

Continuing with Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death,” let’s analyze the use of imagery:

Language and imagery analysis example

Lines chosen for analysis

Discuss themes in body paragraphs

Exploring themes helps you grasp the deeper meaning of the poem and connect it to broader human experiences. Understanding the themes allows you to uncover what the poet is attempting to convey and how the poem relates to readers on a universal level.

In this step, you will likely dedicate multiple body paragraphs to the analysis of various aspects of language and imagery. Each body paragraph should focus on a specific literary device, phrase, or aspect of language and imagery.

Here’s how you can structure the body paragraphs.

Poetry essay body paragraphs example

Body Paragraph 1: Identify and Explain Literary Devices

Body Paragraph 2: Context and Interaction with Themes

Body Paragraph 3: Reader's emotional response and understanding

Provide evidence from the poem

Providing evidence involves quoting specific lines or stanzas from the poem to support the points you’re making in your analysis. These quotes serve as concrete examples that demonstrate how the poet uses language, imagery, or literary devices to convey specific meanings or emotions.

• Select lines or stanzas from the poem that directly relate to the point you're making in your analysis.
• Introduce each quote with context, explaining the significance of the lines and how they contribute to your analysis.
• Use quotation marks to indicate that you're using the poet's language.
• After providing the quote, interpret its meaning. Explain how the language, imagery, or devices used in the quoted lines contribute to your analysis.

Providing evidence example

In your essay, you should include several quotes and interpret them to reinforce your points. Quoting specific lines from the poem allows you to showcase the poet’s language while demonstrating how these lines contribute to the poem’s overall expression.

Write a conclusion

Conclusion paragraph is the last sentence of your poem analysis essay. It reinforces your thesis statement and emphasizes your insights.

Additionally, the conclusion offers a chance to provide a final thought that leaves a lasting impression on the reader. In your conclusion, make sure to:

• Start by rephrasing your thesis statement. Remind the reader of the main argument you've made in your essay.
• Provide a concise summary of the main points. Avoid introducing new information; focus on the key ideas.
• Discuss the broader significance or implications. How does the poem's message relate to readers beyond its specific context?
• End with a thoughtful reflection, observation, or question that leaves the reader with something to ponder.

Poetry essay conclusion example

In your essay, the conclusion serves as a final opportunity to leave a strong impression on the reader by summarizing your analysis and offering insights into the poem’s broader significance.

Now, it’s time to double check what you’ve written.

Proofread and revise your essay

Edit your essay for clarity, coherence, tense selection , correct headings , etc. Ensure that your ideas flow logically and your analysis is well-supported. Remember, a poetry essay is an opportunity to delve into the nuances of a poem’s language, themes, and emotions.

• Review each paragraph to ensure ideas flow logically from one to the next.
• Check for grammar and punctuation errors.
• Verify that your evidence from the poem is accurately quoted and explained.
• Make sure your language is clear and effectively conveys your analysis.

By proofreading and revising, you can refine your essay, improving its readability and ensuring that your insights are communicated accurately.

So this was the last part, you’re now ready to write your first poem analysis (poetry) essay. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What should i include in the introduction of a poetry essay.

In the introduction, provide background information about the poem and poet. Include the poem’s title, publication date, and any relevant context that helps readers understand its significance.

Can I include my emotional responses in a poetry essay?

Yes, you can discuss your emotional responses, but ensure they are supported by your analysis of the poem’s literary elements. Avoid focusing solely on personal feelings.

Is it important to understand the poet's background when writing a poetry essay?

While it can provide context, your focus should be on analyzing the poem itself. If the poet’s background is relevant to the poem’s interpretation, mention it briefly.

What's the best way to conclude a poetry essay?

In the conclusion, summarize your main points and tie them together. Offer insights into the poem’s broader significance, implications, or lasting impact.

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Writing About Poetry

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Writing about poetry can be one of the most demanding tasks that many students face in a literature class. Poetry, by its very nature, makes demands on a writer who attempts to analyze it that other forms of literature do not. So how can you write a clear, confident, well-supported essay about poetry? This handout offers answers to some common questions about writing about poetry.

What's the Point?

In order to write effectively about poetry, one needs a clear idea of what the point of writing about poetry is. When you are assigned an analytical essay about a poem in an English class, the goal of the assignment is usually to argue a specific thesis about the poem, using your analysis of specific elements in the poem and how those elements relate to each other to support your thesis.

So why would your teacher give you such an assignment? What are the benefits of learning to write analytic essays about poetry? Several important reasons suggest themselves:

• To help you learn to make a text-based argument. That is, to help you to defend ideas based on a text that is available to you and other readers. This sharpens your reasoning skills by forcing you to formulate an interpretation of something someone else has written and to support that interpretation by providing logically valid reasons why someone else who has read the poem should agree with your argument. This isn't a skill that is just important in academics, by the way. Lawyers, politicians, and journalists often find that they need to make use of similar skills.
• To help you to understand what you are reading more fully. Nothing causes a person to make an extra effort to understand difficult material like the task of writing about it. Also, writing has a way of helping you to see things that you may have otherwise missed simply by causing you to think about how to frame your own analysis.
• To help you enjoy poetry more! This may sound unlikely, but one of the real pleasures of poetry is the opportunity to wrestle with the text and co-create meaning with the author. When you put together a well-constructed analysis of the poem, you are not only showing that you understand what is there, you are also contributing to an ongoing conversation about the poem. If your reading is convincing enough, everyone who has read your essay will get a little more out of the poem because of your analysis.

What Should I Know about Writing about Poetry?

Most importantly, you should realize that a paper that you write about a poem or poems is an argument. Make sure that you have something specific that you want to say about the poem that you are discussing. This specific argument that you want to make about the poem will be your thesis. You will support this thesis by drawing examples and evidence from the poem itself. In order to make a credible argument about the poem, you will want to analyze how the poem works—what genre the poem fits into, what its themes are, and what poetic techniques and figures of speech are used.

What Can I Write About?

Theme: One place to start when writing about poetry is to look at any significant themes that emerge in the poetry. Does the poetry deal with themes related to love, death, war, or peace? What other themes show up in the poem? Are there particular historical events that are mentioned in the poem? What are the most important concepts that are addressed in the poem?

Genre: What kind of poem are you looking at? Is it an epic (a long poem on a heroic subject)? Is it a sonnet (a brief poem, usually consisting of fourteen lines)? Is it an ode? A satire? An elegy? A lyric? Does it fit into a specific literary movement such as Modernism, Romanticism, Neoclassicism, or Renaissance poetry? This is another place where you may need to do some research in an introductory poetry text or encyclopedia to find out what distinguishes specific genres and movements.

Versification: Look closely at the poem's rhyme and meter. Is there an identifiable rhyme scheme? Is there a set number of syllables in each line? The most common meter for poetry in English is iambic pentameter, which has five feet of two syllables each (thus the name "pentameter") in each of which the strongly stressed syllable follows the unstressed syllable. You can learn more about rhyme and meter by consulting our handout on sound and meter in poetry or the introduction to a standard textbook for poetry such as the Norton Anthology of Poetry . Also relevant to this category of concerns are techniques such as caesura (a pause in the middle of a line) and enjambment (continuing a grammatical sentence or clause from one line to the next). Is there anything that you can tell about the poem from the choices that the author has made in this area? For more information about important literary terms, see our handout on the subject.

Figures of speech: Are there literary devices being used that affect how you read the poem? Here are some examples of commonly discussed figures of speech:

• metaphor: comparison between two unlike things
• simile: comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as"
• metonymy: one thing stands for something else that is closely related to it (For example, using the phrase "the crown" to refer to the king would be an example of metonymy.)
• synecdoche: a part stands in for a whole (For example, in the phrase "all hands on deck," "hands" stands in for the people in the ship's crew.)
• personification: a non-human thing is endowed with human characteristics
• litotes: a double negative is used for poetic effect (example: not unlike, not displeased)
• irony: a difference between the surface meaning of the words and the implications that may be drawn from them

Cultural Context: How does the poem you are looking at relate to the historical context in which it was written? For example, what's the cultural significance of Walt Whitman's famous elegy for Lincoln "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" in light of post-Civil War cultural trends in the U.S.A? How does John Donne's devotional poetry relate to the contentious religious climate in seventeenth-century England? These questions may take you out of the literature section of your library altogether and involve finding out about philosophy, history, religion, economics, music, or the visual arts.

What Style Should I Use?

It is useful to follow some standard conventions when writing about poetry. First, when you analyze a poem, it is best to use present tense rather than past tense for your verbs. Second, you will want to make use of numerous quotations from the poem and explain their meaning and their significance to your argument. After all, if you do not quote the poem itself when you are making an argument about it, you damage your credibility. If your teacher asks for outside criticism of the poem as well, you should also cite points made by other critics that are relevant to your argument. A third point to remember is that there are various citation formats for citing both the material you get from the poems themselves and the information you get from other critical sources. The most common citation format for writing about poetry is the Modern Language Association (MLA) format .

Fordham Library News

The latest from the Fordham University Libraries

A Guide to Researching Poetry

By Jeannie Hoag, Reference and Assessment Librarian

Tips for Researching Poetry

Among many other delightful signs of spring, April brings us National Poetry Month.  Springtime during a pandemic is a contradictory mix of delights and shadows –an imperfectly perfect opportunity for poetry.

This is the 25th year we’ve been graced with National Poetry Month . If you regularly recognize National Poetry Month, it might be a welcome reminder of normalcy. And if you’ve never celebrated this month but want to dip your toe into the waters of the poetry pond, you’ve chosen a great time to explore. Below, you will find a few tips to help you get started with poetry research. A proposal: keep it simple, and let subject terms do the hard work for you.

Tip #1: Start Local

First, let’s look at what’s happening on the local front. The library catalog makes it easy to identify works by Fordham faculty. Add in a few well-chosen limiters, and you can quickly pull together a list of books to dig into.

For example, by using the library catalog’s Advanced Search view, you can search using the subject terms “Fordham faculty author” and “poetry.” You’ll come away with a list of books of poetry, or books about poetry, by our very own faculty members. (This works for other topics, too.)

If you’re interested in exploring beyond Fordham, you can simply use the subject term “poetry” to find all the resources that are poetry-related. With over 35,000 results, that may be a bit overwhelming, so consider using some of these more specific subject terms:

• Narrative poetry
• Prose poems
• Modern poetry
• Jesuit poetry

And for focusing on poetry craft and technique, consider:

• Poetry authorship
• Poetry teaching
• Poetry criticism

If you’re able to visit the Walsh or Quinn libraries, might enjoy browsing by using this list of Library of Congress call numbers for Languages and Literatures . Some of the best discoveries come by way of serendipity. Even easier, pay a visit to the Poetry Room on the 3rd floor of Walsh Library, where you’ll find poetry spanning continents and centuries.

Tip #2: Get Specialized

Do you have a specific poetry need? Maybe a line has been zipping around, unidentified, all week. Or perhaps you’re officiating a wedding, dedicating a building, or tasked with making a public pronouncement that would benefit from a well-chosen poem.

Whatever your scenario, try Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry . This database provides a hearty amount of information, including the full text of some poems, author information, and subject indexing (497 poems about hair, 2 about haggis). It even notes applicable anthologies.

As with all our databases, you can locate Columbia Granger’s via the Databases tab on the library website. The advanced search option gives you maximum control, while the browse option is great for those who are just looking.

Tip #3: Expand Your Horizons

As you can see, the field of poetry is delightfully nuanced. If you’ve exhausted Fordham Libraries’ coverage of your area of interest, look globally to WorldCat .

WorldCat is a powerhouse “world catalog,” and is located on the library website under Resources .

Using the same Library of Congress subject terms you used in your library catalog search, you can see what’s available on your topic at libraries worldwide. For example, using the advanced search option in WorldCat, you can search for other books with the subject of poetry authorship.

In the results, books at Fordham are clearly labeled.

Find something interesting that’s not at Fordham? You can request it through ILLiad, our interlibrary loan service . And if it’s something you think Fordham should have, you can suggest it for purchase .

The Fordham Libraries has many excellent books and great databases for researching poetry. Whether you’re looking for literary criticism, biographies, or individual poems, we’ve got you covered. The Poetry research guide is full of recommended resources. Not finding what you’re looking for? Just ask a librarian. Our chat service is staffed 24/7, and you can also email our library liaisons directly.

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• Strategies for Poetry Research

Page Overview

This page addresses the research process -- the things that should be done before the actual writing of the paper -- and strategies for engaging in the process.  Although this LibGuide focuses on researching poems or poetry, this particular page is more general in scope and is applicable to most lower-division college research assignments.

Before You Begin

Before beginning any research process, first be absolutely sure you know the requirements of the assignment.  Things such as  

• the date the completed project is due 
• the due dates of any intermediate assignments, like turning in a working bibliography or notes
• the length requirement (minimum word count), if any 
• the minimum number and types (for example, books or articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals) of sources required

These formal requirements are as much a part of the assignment as the paper itself.  They form the box into which you must fit your work.  Do not take them lightly.

When possible, it is helpful to subdivide the overall research process into phases, a tactic which

• makes the idea of research less intimidating because you are dealing with sections at a time rather than the whole process
• makes the process easier to manage
• gives a sense of accomplishment as you move from one phase to the next

Characteristics of a Well-written Paper

Although there are many details that must be given attention in writing a research paper, there are three major criteria which must be met.  A well-written paper is

• Unified:  the paper has only one major idea; or, if it seeks to address multiple points, one point is given priority and the others are subordinated to it.
• Coherent: the body of the paper presents its contents in a logical order easy for readers to follow; use of transitional phrases (in addition, because of this, therefore, etc.) between paragraphs and sentences is important.
• Complete:  the paper delivers on everything it promises and does not leave questions in the mind of the reader; everything mentioned in the introduction is discussed somewhere in the paper; the conclusion does not introduce new ideas or anything not already addressed in the paper.

Basic Research Strategy

• How to Research From Pellissippi State Community College Libraries: discusses the principal components of a simple search strategy.
• Basic Research Strategies From Nassau Community College: a start-up guide for college level research that supplements the information in the preceding link. Tabs two, three, and four plus the Web Evaluation tab are the most useful for JSU students. As with any LibGuide originating from another campus, care must be taken to recognize the information which is applicable generally from that which applies solely to the Guide's home campus. .
• Information Literacy Tutorial From Nassau Community College: an elaboration on the material covered in the preceding link (also from NCC) which discusses that material in greater depth. The quizzes and surveys may be ignored.

Things to Keep in Mind

Although a research assignment can be daunting, there are things which can make the process less stressful, more manageable, and yield a better result.  And they are generally applicable across all types and levels of research.

1.  Be aware of the parameters of the assignment: topic selection options, due date, length requirement, source requirements.  These form the box into which you must fit your work.  

2. Treat the assignment as a series of components or stages rather than one undivided whole.

• devise a schedule for each task in the process: topic selection and refinement (background/overview information), source material from books (JaxCat), source material from journals (databases/Discovery), other sources (internet, interviews, non-print materials); the note-taking, drafting, and editing processes.
• stick to your timetable.  Time can be on your side as a researcher, but only if you keep to your schedule and do not delay or put everything off until just before the assignment deadline. 

3.  Leave enough time between your final draft and the submission date of your work that you can do one final proofread after the paper is no longer "fresh" to you.  You may find passages that need additional work because you see that what is on the page and what you meant to write are quite different.  Even better, have a friend or classmate read your final draft before you submit it.  A fresh pair of eyes sometimes has clearer vision. 

4.  If at any point in the process you encounter difficulties, consult a librarian.  Hunters use guides; fishermen use guides.  Explorers use guides.  When you are doing research, you are an explorer in the realm of ideas; your librarian is your guide. 

A Note on Sources

Research requires engagement with various types of sources.

• Primary sources: the thing itself, such as letters, diaries, documents, a painting, a sculpture; in lower-division literary research, usually a play, poem, or short story.
• Secondary sources: information about the primary source, such as books, essays, journal articles, although images and other media also might be included.  Companions, dictionaries, and encyclopedias are secondary sources.
• Tertiary sources: things such as bibliographies, indexes, or electronic databases (minus the full text) which serve as guides to point researchers toward secondary sources.  A full text database would be a combination of a secondary and tertiary source; some books have a bibliography of additional sources in the back.

Accessing sources requires going through various "information portals," each designed to principally support a certain type of content.  Houston Cole Library provides four principal information portals:

• JaxCat online catalog: books, although other items such as journals, newspapers, DVDs, and musical scores also may be searched for.
• Electronic databases: journal articles, newspaper stories, interviews, reviews (and a few books; JaxCat still should be the "go-to" portal for books).  JaxCat indexes records for the complete item: the book, journal, newspaper, CD but has no records for parts of the complete item: the article in the journal, the editorial in the newspaper, the song off the CD.  Databases contain records for these things.
• Discovery Search: mostly journal articles, but also (some) books and (some) random internet pages.  Discovery combines elements of the other three information portals and is especially useful for searches where one is researching a new or obscure topic about which little is likely to be written, or does not know where the desired information may be concentrated.  Discovery is the only portal which permits simul-searching across databases provided by multiple vendors.
• Internet (Bing, Dogpile, DuckDuckGo, Google, etc.): primarily webpages, especially for businesses (.com), government divisions at all levels (.gov), or organizations (.org). as well as pages for primary source-type documents such as lesson plans and public-domain books.  While book content (Google Books) and journal articles (Google Scholar) are accessible, these are not the strengths of the internet and more successful searches for this type of content can be performed through JaxCat and the databases.  

NOTE: There is no predetermined hierarchy among these information portals as regards which one should be used most or gone to first.  These considerations depend on the task at hand and will vary from assignment o assignment.

The link below provides further information on the different source types.

• Research Methods From Truckee Meadows Community College: a guide to basic research. The tab "What Type of Source?" presents an overview of the various types of information sources, identifying the advantages and disadvantages of each.
• << Previous: Find Books
• Last Updated: Apr 19, 2024 7:27 AM
• URL: https://libguides.jsu.edu/litresearchpoems

How to Research Poetry

To locate biographical material or criticism in books, perform an alphabetical SUBJECT SEARCH in the Library Catalog ( catalog.nypl.org ) typing in the last name of the poet followed by the first name.

The search yielded six different subject headings. It is important to look deeper into each one of these headings, especially the one that indicates "Criticism and Interpretation." In this example, there are nine books of criticism and interpretation of Sexton's poetry.

• Once you find a book of on the shelf, check books nearby with similar call numbers for other sources.
• Pay special attention to the bibliographies and suggestions for further reading. These lists will contain titles of other books and journal articles that are related to the subject.
• Biographies do more than tell the life stories of a poet: they often contain criticism of specific poems that is accessed through the index in the back of the book.

REFERENCE BOOKS - Multi-volume and self-indexing sources

**The information in the following Magill's books is also available at the Mid-Manhattan Library from the online database Magill On Literature Plus .

• Magill's Critical Survey of Poetry-English Language Series** This 8-volume set presents an essay on each poet included. Each essay contains essential information that includes: Principal poetry, Other Literary forms, Achievements, Biography, Analysis, and Bibliography. An excellent introduction to poetry criticism. The index at the end of the eighth volume is very useful.
• Magill's Critical Survey of Poetry-Foreign Language Series ** Arranged similarly to the English Language Series, this series contains extensive essays on poets who wrote in a language other than English. The essays include the same information found for poets in the English Language Series. Volume 5 indexes the entire set and contains longer essays that discuss an entire country's poetry. Examples of some essays include: "Hungarian Poetry," "Ancient Greek Poetry", and "Third World Poetry."
• Magill's Masterplots II-Poetry Series ** This multi-volume set focuses on analyzing specific famous poems. Use the index in Volume 9 to locate the poet, then the poem you are researching. Each signed essay has three sections: "The Poem," "Forms and Devices" and "Themes and Meanings."
• Explicator Cyclopedia (in 2 volumes) Ref 820.9 E; Kept at Librarians Desk. References to brief but important criticism of specific poems arranged alphabetically by poet. Each entry originally appeared in the journal The Explicator. The contributor's name and date of publication is given.
• Poetry Criticism This very popular reference series contains "excerpts from criticism of the works of the most significant and widely studied poets of world literature." Ask at the librarian's desk to see the "Annual Cumulative Title Index" to determine the exact volumes and pages that mention the specific poem or poet you are researching. In addition, you can use the Gale Literary Index from the Literature Resource Center database to get an index to articles in a wide variety of literary criticism sets.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES - books that direct you to other books and journal articles that discuss the poet you are researching.

The following helpful bibliographies refer you to the exact pages a given poem is discussed in periodicals or books.

• Kuntz, Joseph M, ed. Poetry Explication: a Checklist of Interpretation since 1925 of British and American Poems Past and Present
• Martinez, Nancy C., ed., Guide to British Poetry Explication (in three volumes)
• Coleman, Arthur, ed., Epic and Romance Criticism
• Anderson, Emily Ann, ed., English Poetry , 1900-1950
• Aubrey, Bryan, ed., English Romantic Poetry. (Magill Bibliographies)
• Leo, John R., ed., Guide to American Poetry Explication, Vol 2, Modern and Contemporary

REFERENCE BOOKS - Complete in One Volume

Contemporary Poets REF 821.914 Kept at librarian's desk Concise, signed, articles about poets that include personal information, a list of publications, and a critical examination of the complete body of works with a look at a few specific poems.

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics REF 808.103. Kept at librarian's desk. If you are seeking definitions of poetic terms, poetic movements, and an essay on the poetry of a given country, this is an excellent place to start. Each entry, though often brief, is exhaustive, and is signed, often with a bibliography.

Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century Ready REF 811.5 This is a good starting source for researching American poets and poetic movements of the 20th century. A concise biography and a useful list of suggestions for further reading follow a signed essay discussing the poets and their major achievements. In depth analysis of one or more specific poems is often included.

ONLINE POETRY CRITICISM

The New York Public Library subscribes to many databases that contain either citations to, or in many cases the full text of, critical articles from literary journals and books. Some of these databases are available from home with a valid New York Public Library card at www.nypl.org/databases . The Literature Resource Center and Magill On Literature Plus are two excellent databases that provide many full-text articles of criticism and biography. Other databases such as JSTOR and the MLA Bibliography are more advanced, but link to information from the best literary journals and chapters of books.

For more help on using these and other online databases ask the literature librarian and consult the guide entitled ONLINE LITERARY CRITICISM: A Guide to Research available at the library.

How to Write a Research Paper

Use the links below to jump directly to any section of this guide:

Research Paper Fundamentals

How to choose a topic or question, how to create a working hypothesis or thesis, common research paper methodologies, how to gather and organize evidence , how to write an outline for your research paper, how to write a rough draft, how to revise your draft, how to produce a final draft, resources for teachers .

It is not fair to say that no one writes anymore. Just about everyone writes text messages, brief emails, or social media posts every single day. Yet, most people don't have a lot of practice with the formal, organized writing required for a good academic research paper. This guide contains links to a variety of resources that can help demystify the process. Some of these resources are intended for teachers; they contain exercises, activities, and teaching strategies. Other resources are intended for direct use by students who are struggling to write papers, or are looking for tips to make the process go more smoothly.

The resources in this section are designed to help students understand the different types of research papers, the general research process, and how to manage their time. Below, you'll find links from university writing centers, the trusted Purdue Online Writing Lab, and more.

What is an Academic Research Paper?

"Genre and the Research Paper" (Purdue OWL)

There are different types of research papers. Different types of scholarly questions will lend themselves to one format or another. This is a brief introduction to the two main genres of research paper: analytic and argumentative. 

"7 Most Popular Types of Research Papers" (Personal-writer.com)

This resource discusses formats that high school students commonly encounter, such as the compare and contrast essay and the definitional essay. Please note that the inclusion of this link is not an endorsement of this company's paid service.

How to Prepare and Plan Out Writing a Research Paper

Teachers can give their students a step-by-step guide like these to help them understand the different steps of the research paper process. These guides can be combined with the time management tools in the next subsection to help students come up with customized calendars for completing their papers.

"Ten Steps for Writing Research Papers" (American University)  

This resource from American University is a comprehensive guide to the research paper writing process, and includes examples of proper research questions and thesis topics.

"Steps in Writing a Research Paper" (SUNY Empire State College)

This guide breaks the research paper process into 11 steps. Each "step" links to a separate page, which describes the work entailed in completing it.

How to Manage Time Effectively

The links below will help students determine how much time is necessary to complete a paper. If your sources are not available online or at your local library, you'll need to leave extra time for the Interlibrary Loan process. Remember that, even if you do not need to consult secondary sources, you'll still need to leave yourself ample time to organize your thoughts.

"Research Paper Planner: Timeline" (Baylor University)

This interactive resource from Baylor University creates a suggested writing schedule based on how much time a student has to work on the assignment.

"Research Paper Planner" (UCLA)

UCLA's library offers this step-by-step guide to the research paper writing process, which also includes a suggested planning calendar.

There's a reason teachers spend a long time talking about choosing a good topic. Without a good topic and a well-formulated research question, it is almost impossible to write a clear and organized paper. The resources below will help you generate ideas and formulate precise questions.

"How to Select a Research Topic" (Univ. of Michigan-Flint)

This resource is designed for college students who are struggling to come up with an appropriate topic. A student who uses this resource and still feels unsure about his or her topic should consult the course instructor for further personalized assistance.

"25 Interesting Research Paper Topics to Get You Started" (Kibin)

This resource, which is probably most appropriate for high school students, provides a list of specific topics to help get students started. It is broken into subsections, such as "paper topics on local issues."

"Writing a Good Research Question" (Grand Canyon University)

This introduction to research questions includes some embedded videos, as well as links to scholarly articles on research questions. This resource would be most appropriate for teachers who are planning lessons on research paper fundamentals.

"How to Write a Research Question the Right Way" (Kibin)

This student-focused resource provides more detail on writing research questions. The language is accessible, and there are embedded videos and examples of good and bad questions.

It is important to have a rough hypothesis or thesis in mind at the beginning of the research process. People who have a sense of what they want to say will have an easier time sorting through scholarly sources and other information. The key, of course, is not to become too wedded to the draft hypothesis or thesis. Just about every working thesis gets changed during the research process.

CrashCourse Video: "Sociology Research Methods" (YouTube)

Although this video is tailored to sociology students, it is applicable to students in a variety of social science disciplines. This video does a good job demonstrating the connection between the brainstorming that goes into selecting a research question and the formulation of a working hypothesis.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement for an Analytical Essay" (YouTube)

Students writing analytical essays will not develop the same type of working hypothesis as students who are writing research papers in other disciplines. For these students, developing the working thesis may happen as a part of the rough draft (see the relevant section below). 

"Research Hypothesis" (Oakland Univ.)

This resource provides some examples of hypotheses in social science disciplines like Political Science and Criminal Justice. These sample hypotheses may also be useful for students in other soft social sciences and humanities disciplines like History.

When grading a research paper, instructors look for a consistent methodology. This section will help you understand different methodological approaches used in research papers. Students will get the most out of these resources if they use them to help prepare for conversations with teachers or discussions in class.

"Types of Research Designs" (USC)

A "research design," used for complex papers, is related to the paper's method. This resource contains introductions to a variety of popular research designs in the social sciences. Although it is not the most intuitive site to read, the information here is very valuable. 

"Major Research Methods" (YouTube)

Although this video is a bit on the dry side, it provides a comprehensive overview of the major research methodologies in a format that might be more accessible to students who have struggled with textbooks or other written resources.

"Humanities Research Strategies" (USC)

This is a portal where students can learn about four methodological approaches for humanities papers: Historical Methodologies, Textual Criticism, Conceptual Analysis, and the Synoptic method.

"Selected Major Social Science Research Methods: Overview" (National Academies Press)

This appendix from the book  Using Science as Evidence in Public Policy , printed by National Academies Press, introduces some methods used in social science papers.

"Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: 6. The Methodology" (USC)

This resource from the University of Southern California's library contains tips for writing a methodology section in a research paper.

How to Determine the Best Methodology for You

Anyone who is new to writing research papers should be sure to select a method in consultation with their instructor. These resources can be used to help prepare for that discussion. They may also be used on their own by more advanced students.

"Choosing Appropriate Research Methodologies" (Palgrave Study Skills)

This friendly and approachable resource from Palgrave Macmillan can be used by students who are just starting to think about appropriate methodologies.

"How to Choose Your Research Methods" (NFER (UK))

This is another approachable resource students can use to help narrow down the most appropriate methods for their research projects.

The resources in this section introduce the process of gathering scholarly sources and collecting evidence. You'll find a range of material here, from introductory guides to advanced explications best suited to college students. Please consult the LitCharts  How to Do Academic Research guide for a more comprehensive list of resources devoted to finding scholarly literature.

Google Scholar

Students who have access to library websites with detailed research guides should start there, but people who do not have access to those resources can begin their search for secondary literature here.

"Gathering Appropriate Information" (Texas Gateway)

This resource from the Texas Gateway for online resources introduces students to the research process, and contains interactive exercises. The level of complexity is suitable for middle school, high school, and introductory college classrooms.

"An Overview of Quantitative and Qualitative Data Collection Methods" (NSF)

This PDF from the National Science Foundation goes into detail about best practices and pitfalls in data collection across multiple types of methodologies.

"Social Science Methods for Data Collection and Analysis" (Swiss FIT)

This resource is appropriate for advanced undergraduates or teachers looking to create lessons on research design and data collection. It covers techniques for gathering data via interviews, observations, and other methods.

"Collecting Data by In-depth Interviewing" (Leeds Univ.)

This resource contains enough information about conducting interviews to make it useful for teachers who want to create a lesson plan, but is also accessible enough for college juniors or seniors to make use of it on their own.

There is no "one size fits all" outlining technique. Some students might devote all their energy and attention to the outline in order to avoid the paper. Other students may benefit from being made to sit down and organize their thoughts into a lengthy sentence outline. The resources in this section include strategies and templates for multiple types of outlines. 

"Topic vs. Sentence Outlines" (UC Berkeley)

This resource introduces two basic approaches to outlining: the shorter topic-based approach, and the longer, more detailed sentence-based approach. This resource also contains videos on how to develop paper paragraphs from the sentence-based outline.

"Types of Outlines and Samples" (Purdue OWL)

The Purdue Online Writing Lab's guide is a slightly less detailed discussion of different types of outlines. It contains several sample outlines.

"Writing An Outline" (Austin C.C.)

This resource from a community college contains sample outlines from an American history class that students can use as models.

"How to Structure an Outline for a College Paper" (YouTube)

This brief (sub-2 minute) video from the ExpertVillage YouTube channel provides a model of outline writing for students who are struggling with the idea.

"Outlining" (Harvard)

This is a good resource to consult after completing a draft outline. It offers suggestions for making sure your outline avoids things like unnecessary repetition.

As with outlines, rough drafts can take on many different forms. These resources introduce teachers and students to the various approaches to writing a rough draft. This section also includes resources that will help you cite your sources appropriately according to the MLA, Chicago, and APA style manuals.

"Creating a Rough Draft for a Research Paper" (Univ. of Minnesota)

This resource is useful for teachers in particular, as it provides some suggested exercises to help students with writing a basic rough draft. 

Rough Draft Assignment (Duke of Definition)

This sample assignment, with a brief list of tips, was developed by a high school teacher who runs a very successful and well-reviewed page of educational resources.

"Creating the First Draft of Your Research Paper" (Concordia Univ.)

This resource will be helpful for perfectionists or procrastinators, as it opens by discussing the problem of avoiding writing. It also provides a short list of suggestions meant to get students writing.

Using Proper Citations

There is no such thing as a rough draft of a scholarly citation. These links to the three major citation guides will ensure that your citations follow the correct format. Please consult the LitCharts How to Cite Your Sources guide for more resources.

Chicago Manual of Style Citation Guide

Some call  The Chicago Manual of Style , which was first published in 1906, "the editors' Bible." The manual is now in its 17th edition, and is popular in the social sciences, historical journals, and some other fields in the humanities.

APA Citation Guide

According to the American Psychological Association, this guide was developed to aid reading comprehension, clarity of communication, and to reduce bias in language in the social and behavioral sciences. Its first full edition was published in 1952, and it is now in its sixth edition.

MLA Citation Guide

The Modern Language Association style is used most commonly within the liberal arts and humanities. The  MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing  was first published in 1985 and (as of 2008) is in its third edition.

Any professional scholar will tell you that the best research papers are made in the revision stage. No matter how strong your research question or working thesis, it is not possible to write a truly outstanding paper without devoting energy to revision. These resources provide examples of revision exercises for the classroom, as well as tips for students working independently.

"The Art of Revision" (Univ. of Arizona)

This resource provides a wealth of information and suggestions for both students and teachers. There is a list of suggested exercises that teachers might use in class, along with a revision checklist that is useful for teachers and students alike.

"Script for Workshop on Revision" (Vanderbilt University)

Vanderbilt's guide for leading a 50-minute revision workshop can serve as a model for teachers who wish to guide students through the revision process during classtime. 

"Revising Your Paper" (Univ. of Washington)

This detailed handout was designed for students who are beginning the revision process. It discusses different approaches and methods for revision, and also includes a detailed list of things students should look for while they revise.

"Revising Drafts" (UNC Writing Center)

This resource is designed for students and suggests things to look for during the revision process. It provides steps for the process and has a FAQ for students who have questions about why it is important to revise.

Conferencing with Writing Tutors and Instructors

No writer is so good that he or she can't benefit from meeting with instructors or peer tutors. These resources from university writing, learning, and communication centers provide suggestions for how to get the most out of these one-on-one meetings.

"Getting Feedback" (UNC Writing Center)

This very helpful resource talks about how to ask for feedback during the entire writing process. It contains possible questions that students might ask when developing an outline, during the revision process, and after the final draft has been graded.

"Prepare for Your Tutoring Session" (Otis College of Art and Design)

This guide from a university's student learning center contains a lot of helpful tips for getting the most out of working with a writing tutor.

"The Importance of Asking Your Professor" (Univ. of Waterloo)

This article from the university's Writing and Communication Centre's blog contains some suggestions for how and when to get help from professors and Teaching Assistants.

Once you've revised your first draft, you're well on your way to handing in a polished paper. These resources—each of them produced by writing professionals at colleges and universities—outline the steps required in order to produce a final draft. You'll find proofreading tips and checklists in text and video form.

"Developing a Final Draft of a Research Paper" (Univ. of Minnesota)

While this resource contains suggestions for revision, it also features a couple of helpful checklists for the last stages of completing a final draft.

Basic Final Draft Tips and Checklist (Univ. of Maryland-University College)

This short and accessible resource, part of UMUC's very thorough online guide to writing and research, contains a very basic checklist for students who are getting ready to turn in their final drafts.

Final Draft Checklist (Everett C.C.)

This is another accessible final draft checklist, appropriate for both high school and college students. It suggests reading your essay aloud at least once.

"How to Proofread Your Final Draft" (YouTube)

This video (approximately 5 minutes), produced by Eastern Washington University, gives students tips on proofreading final drafts.

"Proofreading Tips" (Georgia Southern-Armstrong)

This guide will help students learn how to spot common errors in their papers. It suggests focusing on content and editing for grammar and mechanics.

This final set of resources is intended specifically for high school and college instructors. It provides links to unit plans and classroom exercises that can help improve students' research and writing skills. You'll find resources that give an overview of the process, along with activities that focus on how to begin and how to carry out research. 

"Research Paper Complete Resources Pack" (Teachers Pay Teachers)

This packet of assignments, rubrics, and other resources is designed for high school students. The resources in this packet are aligned to Common Core standards.

"Research Paper—Complete Unit" (Teachers Pay Teachers)

This packet of assignments, notes, PowerPoints, and other resources has a 4/4 rating with over 700 ratings. It is designed for high school teachers, but might also be useful to college instructors who work with freshmen.

"Teaching Students to Write Good Papers" (Yale)

This resource from Yale's Center for Teaching and Learning is designed for college instructors, and it includes links to appropriate activities and exercises.

"Research Paper Writing: An Overview" (CUNY Brooklyn)

CUNY Brooklyn offers this complete lesson plan for introducing students to research papers. It includes an accompanying set of PowerPoint slides.

"Lesson Plan: How to Begin Writing a Research Paper" (San Jose State Univ.)

This lesson plan is designed for students in the health sciences, so teachers will have to modify it for their own needs. It includes a breakdown of the brainstorming, topic selection, and research question process. 

"Quantitative Techniques for Social Science Research" (Univ. of Pittsburgh)

This is a set of PowerPoint slides that can be used to introduce students to a variety of quantitative methods used in the social sciences.

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A Full Guide to Writing a Perfect Poem Analysis Essay

01 October, 2020

14 minutes read

Author:  Elizabeth Brown

Poem analysis is one of the most complicated essay types. It requires the utmost creativity and dedication. Even those who regularly attend a literary class and have enough experience in poem analysis essay elaboration may face considerable difficulties while dealing with the particular poem. The given article aims to provide the detailed guidelines on how to write a poem analysis, elucidate the main principles of writing the essay of the given type, and share with you the handy tips that will help you get the highest score for your poetry analysis. In addition to developing analysis skills, you would be able to take advantage of the poetry analysis essay example to base your poetry analysis essay on, as well as learn how to find a way out in case you have no motivation and your creative assignment must be presented on time.

What Is a Poetry Analysis Essay?

A poetry analysis essay is a type of creative write-up that implies reviewing a poem from different perspectives by dealing with its structural, artistic, and functional pieces. Since the poetry expresses very complicated feelings that may have different meanings depending on the backgrounds of both author and reader, it would not be enough just to focus on the text of the poem you are going to analyze. Poetry has a lot more complex structure and cannot be considered without its special rhythm, images, as well as implied and obvious sense.

While analyzing the poem, the students need to do in-depth research as to its content, taking into account the effect the poetry has or may have on the readers.

Preparing for the Poetry Analysis Writing

The process of preparation for the poem analysis essay writing is almost as important as writing itself. Without completing these stages, you may be at risk of failing your creative assignment. Learn them carefully to remember once and for good.

Thoroughly read the poem several times

The rereading of the poem assigned for analysis will help to catch its concepts and ideas. You will have a possibility to define the rhythm of the poem, its type, and list the techniques applied by the author.

While identifying the type of the poem, you need to define whether you are dealing with:

• Lyric poem – the one that elucidates feelings, experiences, and the emotional state of the author. It is usually short and doesn’t contain any narration;
• Limerick – consists of 5 lines, the first, second, and fifth of which rhyme with one another;
• Sonnet – a poem consisting of 14 lines characterized by an iambic pentameter. William Shakespeare wrote sonnets which have made him famous;
• Ode – 10-line poem aimed at praising someone or something;
• Haiku – a short 3-line poem originated from Japan. It reflects the deep sense hidden behind the ordinary phenomena and events of the physical world;
• Free-verse – poetry with no rhyme.

The type of the poem usually affects its structure and content, so it is important to be aware of all the recognized kinds to set a proper beginning to your poetry analysis.

Find out more about the poem background

Find as much information as possible about the author of the poem, the cultural background of the period it was written in, preludes to its creation, etc. All these data will help you get a better understanding of the poem’s sense and explain much to you in terms of the concepts the poem contains.

Define a subject matter of the poem

This is one of the most challenging tasks since as a rule, the subject matter of the poem isn’t clearly stated by the poets. They don’t want the readers to know immediately what their piece of writing is about and suggest everyone find something different between the lines.

What is the subject matter? In a nutshell, it is the main idea of the poem. Usually, a poem may have a couple of subjects, that is why it is important to list each of them.

In order to correctly identify the goals of a definite poem, you would need to dive into the in-depth research.

Check the historical background of the poetry. The author might have been inspired to write a poem based on some events that occurred in those times or people he met. The lines you analyze may be generated by his reaction to some epoch events. All this information can be easily found online.

Choose poem theories you will support

In the variety of ideas the poem may convey, it is important to stick to only several most important messages you think the author wanted to share with the readers. Each of the listed ideas must be supported by the corresponding evidence as proof of your opinion.

The poetry analysis essay format allows elaborating on several theses that have the most value and weight. Try to build your writing not only on the pure facts that are obvious from the context but also your emotions and feelings the analyzed lines provoke in you.

How to Choose a Poem to Analyze?

If you are free to choose the piece of writing you will base your poem analysis essay on, it is better to select the one you are already familiar with. This may be your favorite poem or one that you have read and analyzed before. In case you face difficulties choosing the subject area of a particular poem, then the best way will be to focus on the idea you feel most confident about. In such a way, you would be able to elaborate on the topic and describe it more precisely.

Now, when you are familiar with the notion of the poetry analysis essay, it’s high time to proceed to poem analysis essay outline. Follow the steps mentioned below to ensure a brilliant structure to your creative assignment.

Best Poem Analysis Essay Topics

• Mother To Son Poem Analysis
• We Real Cool Poem Analysis
• Invictus Poem Analysis
• Richard Cory Poem Analysis
• Ozymandias Poem Analysis
• Barbie Doll Poem Analysis
• Caged Bird Poem Analysis
• Ulysses Poem Analysis
• Dover Beach Poem Analysis
• Annabelle Lee Poem Analysis
• Daddy Poem Analysis
• The Raven Poem Analysis
• The Second Coming Poem Analysis
• Still I Rise Poem Analysis
• If Poem Analysis
• Fire And Ice Poem Analysis
• My Papa’S Waltz Poem Analysis
• Harlem Poem Analysis
• Kubla Khan Poem Analysis
• I Too Poem Analysis
• The Juggler Poem Analysis
• The Fish Poem Analysis
• Jabberwocky Poem Analysis
• Charge Of The Light Brigade Poem Analysis
• The Road Not Taken Poem Analysis
• Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus Poem Analysis
• The History Teacher Poem Analysis
• One Art Poem Analysis
• The Wanderer Poem Analysis
• We Wear The Mask Poem Analysis
• There Will Come Soft Rains Poem Analysis
• Digging Poem Analysis
• The Highwayman Poem Analysis
• The Tyger Poem Analysis
• London Poem Analysis
• Sympathy Poem Analysis
• I Am Joaquin Poem Analysis
• This Is Just To Say Poem Analysis
• Sex Without Love Poem Analysis
• Strange Fruit Poem Analysis
• Dulce Et Decorum Est Poem Analysis
• Emily Dickinson Poem Analysis
• The Flea Poem Analysis
• The Lamb Poem Analysis
• Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Poem Analysis
• My Last Duchess Poetry Analysis

Poem Analysis Essay Outline

As has already been stated, a poetry analysis essay is considered one of the most challenging tasks for the students. Despite the difficulties you may face while dealing with it, the structure of the given type of essay is quite simple. It consists of the introduction, body paragraphs, and the conclusion. In order to get a better understanding of the poem analysis essay structure, check the brief guidelines below.

Introduction

This will be the first section of your essay. The main purpose of the introductory paragraph is to give a reader an idea of what the essay is about and what theses it conveys. The introduction should start with the title of the essay and end with the thesis statement.

The main goal of the introduction is to make readers feel intrigued about the whole concept of the essay and serve as a hook to grab their attention. Include some interesting information about the author, the historical background of the poem, some poem trivia, etc. There is no need to make the introduction too extensive. On the contrary, it should be brief and logical.

Body Paragraphs

The body section should form the main part of poetry analysis. Make sure you have determined a clear focus for your analysis and are ready to elaborate on the main message and meaning of the poem. Mention the tone of the poetry, its speaker, try to describe the recipient of the poem’s idea. Don’t forget to identify the poetic devices and language the author uses to reach the main goals. Describe the imagery and symbolism of the poem, its sound and rhythm.

Try not to stick to too many ideas in your body section, since it may make your essay difficult to understand and too chaotic to perceive. Generalization, however, is also not welcomed. Try to be specific in the description of your perspective.

Make sure the transitions between your paragraphs are smooth and logical to make your essay flow coherent and easy to catch.

In a nutshell, the essay conclusion is a paraphrased thesis statement. Mention it again but in different words to remind the readers of the main purpose of your essay. Sum up the key claims and stress the most important information. The conclusion cannot contain any new ideas and should be used to create a strong impact on the reader. This is your last chance to share your opinion with the audience and convince them your essay is worth readers’ attention.

Problems with writing Your Poem Analysis Essay? Try our Essay Writer Service!

Poem Analysis Essay Examples 

A good poem analysis essay example may serve as a real magic wand to your creative assignment. You may take a look at the structure the other essay authors have used, follow their tone, and get a great share of inspiration and motivation.

Check several poetry analysis essay examples that may be of great assistance:

• https://study.com/academy/lesson/poetry-analysis-essay-example-for-english-literature.html
• https://www.slideshare.net/mariefincher/poetry-analysis-essay

Writing Tips for a Poetry Analysis Essay

If you read carefully all the instructions on how to write a poetry analysis essay provided above, you have probably realized that this is not the easiest assignment on Earth. However, you cannot fail and should try your best to present a brilliant essay to get the highest score. To make your life even easier, check these handy tips on how to analysis poetry with a few little steps.

• In case you have a chance to choose a poem for analysis by yourself, try to focus on one you are familiar with, you are interested in, or your favorite one. The writing process will be smooth and easy in case you are working on the task you truly enjoy.
• Before you proceed to the analysis itself, read the poem out loud to your colleague or just to yourself. It will help you find out some hidden details and senses that may result in new ideas.
• Always check the meaning of words you don’t know. Poetry is quite a tricky phenomenon where a single word or phrase can completely change the meaning of the whole piece. 
• Bother to double check if the conclusion of your essay is based on a single idea and is logically linked to the main body. Such an approach will demonstrate your certain focus and clearly elucidate your views. 
• Read between the lines. Poetry is about senses and emotions – it rarely contains one clearly stated subject matter. Describe the hidden meanings and mention the feelings this has provoked in you. Try to elaborate a full picture that would be based on what is said and what is meant.

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• Spartanburg Community College Library
• SCC Research Guides

ENG 102 - Poetry Research

• 3. Narrow Your Topic

As you start to work on your thesis and supporting examples, you'll want to brainstorm keywords that might help you find secondary sources. You may decide to adjust your topic or thesis as you search for sources. This is a natural part of the research process.  See below for some help on brainstorming keywords.

As you think about what concepts you want to write about, think about what particular words might be found in a good article about that topic. Consider the following when searching databases and e-books:

• Enter the name of the poem with the word "and" and the concept you are looking for  E xample: "The Raven and Death"
• Keywords work best by trial-and-error
• Never do only one search

Revenge --- Vengeance

Death --- Mortality --- Murder

Gender --- Feminism --- Sex

Remember to also use "Search Within Results" option to search further into your results.

• Use "Ctrl F" to search for specific words within a particular article.
• And remember to  ask a librarian  if you need assistance coming up with keywords or looking for sources.
• << Previous: 2. Explore Your Topic
• Next: 4. Find Sources >>
• 1. Getting Started
• 2. Explore Your Topic
• 4. Find Sources
• 5. Cite Your Sources
• 6. Evaluate Your Sources
• 7. Write Your Paper
• Literary Criticism Guide

Questions? Ask a Librarian

• Last Updated: Mar 7, 2024 5:09 PM
• URL: https://libguides.sccsc.edu/Poetry

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To learn how to write a poem step-by-step, let’s start where all poets start: the basics.

This article is an in-depth introduction to how to write a poem. We first answer the question, “What is poetry?” We then discuss the literary elements of poetry, and showcase some different approaches to the writing process—including our own seven-step process on how to write a poem step by step.

So, how do you write a poem? Let’s start with what poetry is.

What Poetry Is

It’s important to know what poetry is—and isn’t—before we discuss how to write a poem. The following quote defines poetry nicely:

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.” —Former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove

Poetry Conveys Feeling

People sometimes imagine poetry as stuffy, abstract, and difficult to understand. Some poetry may be this way, but in reality poetry isn’t about being obscure or confusing. Poetry is a lyrical, emotive method of self-expression, using the elements of poetry to highlight feelings and ideas.

A poem should make the reader feel something.

In other words, a poem should make the reader feel something—not by telling them what to feel, but by evoking feeling directly.

Here’s a contemporary poem that, despite its simplicity (or perhaps because of its simplicity), conveys heartfelt emotion.

Poem by Langston Hughes

I loved my friend. He went away from me. There’s nothing more to say. The poem ends, Soft as it began— I loved my friend.

Poetry is Language at its Richest and Most Condensed

Unlike longer prose writing (such as a short story, memoir, or novel), poetry needs to impact the reader in the richest and most condensed way possible. Here’s a famous quote that enforces that distinction:

“Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.” —Samuel Taylor Coleridge

So poetry isn’t the place to be filling in long backstories or doing leisurely scene-setting. In poetry, every single word carries maximum impact.

Poetry Uses Unique Elements

Poetry is not like other kinds of writing: it has its own unique forms, tools, and principles. Together, these elements of poetry help it to powerfully impact the reader in only a few words.

The elements of poetry help it to powerfully impact the reader in only a few words.

Most poetry is written in verse , rather than prose . This means that it uses line breaks, alongside rhythm or meter, to convey something to the reader. Rather than letting the text break at the end of the page (as prose does), verse emphasizes language through line breaks.

Poetry further accentuates its use of language through rhyme and meter. Poetry has a heightened emphasis on the musicality of language itself: its sounds and rhythms, and the feelings they carry.

These devices—rhyme, meter, and line breaks—are just a few of the essential elements of poetry, which we’ll explore in more depth now.

Understanding the Elements of Poetry

As we explore how to write a poem step by step, these three major literary elements of poetry should sit in the back of your mind:

• Rhythm (Sound, Rhyme, and Meter)
• Literary Devices

1. Elements of Poetry: Rhythm

“Rhythm” refers to the lyrical, sonic qualities of the poem. How does the poem move and breathe; how does it feel on the tongue?

Traditionally, poets relied on rhyme and meter to accomplish a rhythmically sound poem. Free verse poems—which are poems that don’t require a specific length, rhyme scheme, or meter—only became popular in the West in the 20th century, so while rhyme and meter aren’t requirements of modern poetry, they are required of certain poetry forms.

Poetry is capable of evoking certain emotions based solely on the sounds it uses. Words can sound sinister, percussive, fluid, cheerful, dour, or any other noise/emotion in the complex tapestry of human feeling.

Take, for example, this excerpt from the poem “Beat! Beat! Drums!” by Walt Whitman:

Red — “b” sounds

Blue — “th” sounds

Green — “w” and “ew” sounds

Purple — “s” sounds

Orange — “d” and “t” sounds

This poem has a lot of percussive, disruptive sounds that reinforce the beating of the drums. The “b,” “d,” “w,” and “t” sounds resemble these drum beats, while the “th” and “s” sounds are sneakier, penetrating a deeper part of the ear. The cacophony of this excerpt might not sound “lyrical,” but it does manage to command your attention, much like drums beating through a city might sound.

To learn more about consonance and assonance, euphony and cacophony, and the other uses of sound, take a look at our article “12 Literary Devices in Poetry.”

https://writers.com/literary-devices-in-poetry

It would be a crime if you weren’t primed on the ins and outs of rhymes. “Rhyme” refers to words that have similar pronunciations, like this set of words: sound, hound, browned, pound, found, around.

Many poets assume that their poetry has to rhyme, and it’s true that some poems require a complex rhyme scheme. However, rhyme isn’t nearly as important to poetry as it used to be. Most traditional poetry forms—sonnets, villanelles , rimes royal, etc.—rely on rhyme, but contemporary poetry has largely strayed from the strict rhyme schemes of yesterday.

There are three types of rhymes:

• Homophony: Homophones are words that are spelled differently but sound the same, like “tail” and “tale.” Homophones often lead to commonly misspelled words .
• Perfect Rhyme: Perfect rhymes are word pairs that are identical in sound except for one minor difference. Examples include “slant and pant,” “great and fate,” and “shower and power.”
• Slant Rhyme: Slant rhymes are word pairs that use the same sounds, but their final vowels have different pronunciations. For example, “abut” and “about” are nearly-identical in sound, but are pronounced differently enough that they don’t completely rhyme. This is also known as an oblique rhyme or imperfect rhyme.

Meter refers to the stress patterns of words. Certain poetry forms require that the words in the poem follow a certain stress pattern, meaning some syllables are stressed and others are unstressed.

What is “stressed” and “unstressed”? A stressed syllable is the sound that you emphasize in a word. The bolded syllables in the following words are stressed, and the unbolded syllables are unstressed:

• Un• stressed
• Plat• i• tud• i•nous
• De •act•i• vate
• Con• sti •tu• tion•al

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables is important to traditional poetry forms. This chart, copied from our article on form in poetry , summarizes the different stress patterns of poetry.

2. Elements of Poetry: Form

“Form” refers to the structure of the poem. Is the poem a sonnet, a villanelle, a free verse piece, a slam poem, a contrapuntal, a ghazal , a blackout poem , or something new and experimental?

Form also refers to the line breaks and stanza breaks in a poem. Unlike prose, where the end of the page decides the line breaks, poets have control over when one line ends and a new one begins. The words that begin and end each line will emphasize the sounds, images, and ideas that are important to the poet.

To learn more about rhyme, meter, and poetry forms, read our full article on the topic:

https://writers.com/what-is-form-in-poetry

3. Elements of Poetry: Literary Devices

“Poetry: the best words in the best order.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

How does poetry express complex ideas in concise, lyrical language? Literary devices—like metaphor, symbolism, juxtaposition, irony, and hyperbole—help make poetry possible. Learn how to write and master these devices here:

https://writers.com/common-literary-devices

How to Write a Poem, in 7 Steps

To condense the elements of poetry into an actual poem, we’re going to follow a seven-step approach. However, it’s important to know that every poet’s process is different. While the steps presented here are a logical path to get from idea to finished poem, they’re not the only tried-and-true method of poetry writing. Poets can—and should!—modify these steps and generate their own writing process.

Nonetheless, if you’re new to writing poetry or want to explore a different writing process, try your hand at our approach. Here’s how to write a poem step by step!

1. Devise a Topic

The easiest way to start writing a poem is to begin with a topic.

However, devising a topic is often the hardest part. What should your poem be about? And where can you find ideas?

Here are a few places to search for inspiration:

• Other Works of Literature: Poetry doesn’t exist in a vacuum—it’s part of a larger literary tapestry, and can absolutely be influenced by other works. For example, read “The Golden Shovel” by Terrance Hayes , a poem that was inspired by Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool.”
• Real-World Events: Poetry, especially contemporary poetry, has the power to convey new and transformative ideas about the world. Take the poem “A Cigarette” by Ilya Kaminsky , which finds community in a warzone like the eye of a hurricane.
• Your Life: What would poetry be if not a form of memoir? Many contemporary poets have documented their lives in verse. Take Sylvia Plath’s poem “Full Fathom Five” —a daring poem for its time, as few writers so boldly criticized their family as Plath did.
• The Everyday and Mundane: Poetry isn’t just about big, earth-shattering events: much can be said about mundane events, too. Take “Ode to Shea Butter” by Angel Nafis , a poem that celebrates the beautiful “everydayness” of moisturizing.
• Nature: The Earth has always been a source of inspiration for poets, both today and in antiquity. Take “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver , which finds meaning in nature’s quiet rituals.
• Writing Exercises: Prompts and exercises can help spark your creativity, even if the poem you write has nothing to do with the prompt! Here’s 24 writing exercises to get you started.

At this point, you’ve got a topic for your poem. Maybe it’s a topic you’re passionate about, and the words pour from your pen and align themselves into a perfect sonnet! It’s not impossible—most poets have a couple of poems that seemed to write themselves.

However, it’s far more likely you’re searching for the words to talk about this topic. This is where journaling comes in.

Sit in front of a blank piece of paper, with nothing but the topic written on the top. Set a timer for 15-30 minutes and put down all of your thoughts related to the topic. Don’t stop and think for too long, and try not to obsess over finding the right words: what matters here is emotion, the way your subconscious grapples with the topic.

At the end of this journaling session, go back through everything you wrote, and highlight whatever seems important to you: well-written phrases, poignant moments of emotion, even specific words that you want to use in your poem.

Journaling is a low-risk way of exploring your topic without feeling pressured to make it sound poetic. “Sounding poetic” will only leave you with empty language: your journal allows you to speak from the heart. Everything you need for your poem is already inside of you, the journaling process just helps bring it out!

Learn more about keeping a daily journal here:

How to Start Journaling: Practical Advice on How to Journal Daily

3. Think About Form

As one of the elements of poetry, form plays a crucial role in how the poem is both written and read. Have you ever wanted to write a sestina ? How about a contrapuntal, or a double cinquain, or a series of tanka? Your poem can take a multitude of forms, including the beautifully unstructured free verse form; while form can be decided in the editing process, it doesn’t hurt to think about it now.

4. Write the First Line

After a productive journaling session, you’ll be much more acquainted with the state of your heart. You might have a line in your journal that you really want to begin with, or you might want to start fresh and refer back to your journal when you need to! Either way, it’s time to begin.

What should the first line of your poem be? There’s no strict rule here—you don’t have to start your poem with a certain image or literary device. However, here’s a few ways that poets often begin their work:

• Set the Scene: Poetry can tell stories just like prose does. Anne Carson does just this in her poem “Lines,” situating the scene in a conversation with the speaker’s mother.
• Start at the Conflict: Right away, tell the reader where it hurts most. Margaret Atwood does this in “Ghost Cat,” a poem about aging.
• Start With a Contradiction: Juxtaposition and contrast are two powerful tools in the poet’s toolkit. Joan Larkin’s poem “Want” begins and ends with these devices. Carlos Gimenez Smith also begins his poem “Entanglement” with a juxtaposition.
• Start With Your Title: Some poets will use the title as their first line, like Ron Padgett’s poem “Ladies and Gentlemen in Outer Space.”

There are many other ways to begin poems, so play around with different literary devices, and when you’re stuck, turn to other poetry for inspiration.

5. Develop Ideas and Devices

You might not know where your poem is going until you finish writing it. In the meantime, stick to your literary devices. Avoid using too many abstract nouns, develop striking images, use metaphors and similes to strike interesting comparisons, and above all, speak from the heart.

6. Write the Closing Line

Some poems end “full circle,” meaning that the images the poet used in the beginning are reintroduced at the end. Gwendolyn Brooks does this in her poem “my dreams, my work, must wait till after hell.”

Yet, many poets don’t realize what their poems are about until they write the ending line . Poetry is a search for truth, especially the hard truths that aren’t easily explained in casual speech. Your poem, too, might not be finished until it comes across a necessary truth, so write until you strike the heart of what you feel, and the poem will come to its own conclusion.

7. Edit, Edit, Edit!

Do you have a working first draft of your poem? Congratulations! Getting your feelings onto the page is a feat in itself.

Yet, no guide on how to write a poem is complete without a note on editing. If you plan on sharing or publishing your work, or if you simply want to edit your poem to near-perfection, keep these tips in mind.

• Adjectives and Adverbs: Use these parts of speech sparingly. Most imagery shouldn’t rely on adjectives and adverbs, because the image should be striking and vivid on its own, without too much help from excess language.
• Concrete Line Breaks: Line breaks help emphasize important words, making certain images and ideas clearer to the reader. As a general rule, most of your lines should start and end with concrete words—nouns and verbs especially.
• Stanza Breaks: Stanzas are like paragraphs to poetry. A stanza can develop a new idea, contrast an existing idea, or signal a transition in the poem’s tone. Make sure each stanza clearly stands for something as a unit of the poem.
• Mixed Metaphors: A mixed metaphor is when two metaphors occupy the same idea, making the poem unnecessarily difficult to understand. Here’s an example of a mixed metaphor: “a watched clock never boils.” The meaning can be discerned, but the image remains unclear. Be wary of mixed metaphors—though some poets (like Shakespeare) make them work, they’re tricky and often disruptive.
• Abstractions: Above all, avoid using excessively abstract language. It’s fine to use the word “love” 2 or 3 times in a poem, but don’t use it twice in every stanza. Let the imagery in your poem express your feelings and ideas, and only use abstractions as brief connective tissue in otherwise-concrete writing.

Lastly, don’t feel pressured to “do something” with your poem. Not all poems need to be shared and edited. Poetry doesn’t have to be “good,” either—it can simply be a statement of emotions by the poet, for the poet. Publishing is an admirable goal, but also, give yourself permission to write bad poems, unedited poems, abstract poems, and poems with an audience of one. Write for yourself—editing is for the other readers.

How to Write a Poem: Different Approaches and Philosophies

Poetry is the oldest literary form, pre-dating prose, theater, and the written word itself. As such, there are many different schools of thought when it comes to writing poetry. You might be wondering how to write a poem through different methods and approaches: here’s four philosophies to get you started.

How to Write a Poem: Poetry as Emotion

If you asked a Romantic Poet “what is poetry?”, they would tell you that poetry is the spontaneous emotion of the soul.

The Romantic Era viewed poetry as an extension of human emotion—a way of perceiving the world through unbridled creativity, centered around the human soul. While many Romantic poets used traditional forms in their poetry, the Romantics weren’t afraid to break from tradition, either.

To write like a Romantic, feel—and feel intensely. The words will follow the emotions, as long as a blank page sits in front of you.

How to Write a Poem: Poetry as Stream of Consciousness

If you asked a Modernist poet, “What is poetry?” they would tell you that poetry is the search for complex truths.

Modernist Poets were keen on the use of poetry as a window into the mind. A common technique of the time was “Stream of Consciousness,” which is unfiltered writing that flows directly from the poet’s inner dialogue. By tapping into one’s subconscious, the poet might uncover deeper truths and emotions they were initially unaware of.

Depending on who you are as a writer, Stream of Consciousness can be tricky to master, but this guide covers the basics of how to write using this technique.

How to Write a Poem: Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a practice of documenting the mind, rather than trying to control or edit what it produces. This practice was popularized by the Beat Poets , who in turn were inspired by Eastern philosophies and Buddhist teachings. If you asked a Beat Poet “what is poetry?”, they would tell you that poetry is the human consciousness, unadulterated.

To learn more about the art of leaving your mind alone , take a look at our guide on Mindfulness, from instructor Marc Olmsted.

https://writers.com/mindful-writing

How to Write a Poem: Poem as Camera Lens

Many contemporary poets use poetry as a camera lens, documenting global events and commenting on both politics and injustice. If you find yourself itching to write poetry about the modern day, press your thumb against the pulse of the world and write what you feel.

Additionally, check out these two essays by Electric Literature on the politics of poetry:

• What Can Poetry Do That Politics Can’t?
• Why All Poems Are Political (TL;DR: Poetry is an urgent expression of freedom).

Okay, I Know How to Write a Good Poem. What Next?

Poetry, like all art forms, takes practice and dedication. You might write a poem you enjoy now, and think it’s awfully written 3 years from now; you might also write some of your best work after reading this guide. Poetry is fickle, but the pen lasts forever, so write poems as long as you can!

Once you understand how to write a poem, and after you’ve drafted some pieces that you’re proud of and ready to share, here are some next steps you can take.

Publish in Literary Journals

Want to see your name in print? These literary journals house some of the best poetry being published today.

https://writers.com/best-places-submit-poetry-online

Assemble and Publish a Manuscript

A poem can tell a story. So can a collection of poems. If you’re interested in publishing a poetry book, learn how to compose and format one here:

https://writers.com/poetry-manuscript-format

Join a Writing Community

writers.com is an online community of writers, and we’d love it if you shared your poetry with us! Join us on Facebook and check out our upcoming poetry courses .

Poetry doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it exists to educate and uplift society. The world is waiting for your voice, so find a group and share your work!

Sean Glatch

27 comments.

super useful! love these articles 💕

Indeed, very helpful, consize. I could not say more than thank you.

I’ve never read a better guide on how to write poetry step by step. Not only does it give great tips, but it also provides helpful links! Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Hamna! I’m so glad this guide was helpful for you.

Best guide so far

Very inspirational and marvelous tips

Thank you super tips very helpful.

I have never gone through the steps of writing poetry like this, I will take a closer look at your post.

Beautiful! Thank you! I’m really excited to try journaling as a starter step x

[…] How to Write a Poem, Step-by-Step […]

This is really helpful, thanks so much

Extremely thorough! Nice job.

Thank you so much for sharing your awesome tips for beginner writers!

People must reboot this and bookmark it. Your writing and explanation is detailed to the core. Thanks for helping me understand different poetic elements. While reading, actually, I start thinking about how my husband construct his songs and why other artists lack that organization (or desire to be better). Anyway, this gave me clarity.

I’m starting to use poetry as an outlet for my blogs, but I also have to keep in mind I’m transitioning from a blogger to a poetic sweet kitty potato (ha). It’s a unique transition, but I’m so used to writing a lot, it’s strange to see an open blog post with a lot of lines and few paragraphs.

Anyway, thanks again!

I’m happy this article was so helpful, Eternity! Thanks for commenting, and best of luck with your poetry blog.

Yours in verse, Sean

One of the best articles I read on how to write poems. And it is totally step by step process which is easy to read and understand.

Thanks for the step step explanation in how to write poems it’s a very helpful to me and also for everyone one. THANKYOU

Totally detailed and in a simple language told the best way how to write poems. It is a guide that one should read and follow. It gives the detailed guidance about how to write poems. One of the best articles written on how to write poems.

what a guidance thank you so much now i can write a poem thank you again again and again

The most inspirational and informative article I have ever read in the 21st century.It gives the most relevent,practical, comprehensive and effective insights and guides to aspiring writers.

Thank you so much. This is so useful to me a poetry

[…] Write a short story/poem (Here are some tips) […]

It was very helpful and am willing to try it out for my writing Thanks ❤️

Thank you so much. This is so helpful to me, and am willing to try it out for my writing .

Absolutely constructive, direct, and so useful as I’m striving to develop a recent piece. Thank you!

thank you for your explanation……,love it

Really great. Nothing less.

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How to Write a Poem: Poetry Writing Guide for Beginners

Unlock your creative potential with our step-by-step poetry writing guide for beginners. Learn how to write a poem and express yourself through words.

Last updated on Feb 17th, 2024

When you click on affiliate links on QuillMuse.com and make a purchase, you won’t pay a penny more, but we’ll get a small commission—this helps us keep up with publishing valuable content on QuillMuse.  Read More .

Table of Contents

Do you think about how to write a poem? Some writers think that it is possible to write a poem without literature students. I think, of course, it is possible to write a poem without literature students. You just need proper guidelines.

Some content writers asked me how to write a poem. In case you do not consider yourself a writer, writing poetry challenges your phrasing, capacity to be concise, use of symbolism, rhythm, and narrating abilities.

On the off chance that the thought of writing poetry appears a little intimidating, you’re not alone. Poetry has exploded in the final few years, particularly since social media artists began to win over new poetry fans by filling timelines with relatable pieces of poetry. Within the ever-evolving world of poetry, it can be challenging to figure out where to start. Do not stress; the small interminable has you secured with something for everybody.

Follow these comprehensive steps on how to write a poem and become an expert poetry writer.

1. Study poetry

When you are curious about how to write a poem, be conscious that you must read so many poems that will make you write a poem easily.

Whereas this sounds self-evident, you’d be astounded to memorize that few writers Read a part of poetry. If you want to become a famous poet, you need to read about the writers who have come before you.

Reading poetry can also help you identify which styles of poetry you’re fascinated by. Additionally, it’s an awesome way to get motivated when a writer’s piece unavoidably creeps out of its head.

Read more: How to Write Your Life Story

2. Do not overcomplicate it

We get that this may be simpler said at that point done; however, beginning little may be an awesome way to begin doing anything modern.

For example, do not attempt to begin writing poetry by writing a 1,000-line epic lyric. Instead, begin with something shorter, like a 3-line poem.

Starting small will help you grow your abilities and inevitably help you develop your confidence to undertake harder shapes of verse.

3. Attend poetry groups

When learning how to write a poem, creative spaces offer assistance to develop and sharpen your wonderful fashion. We highly suggest you get included in your nearby inventive scene. 

This implies going to poetry readings, joining nearby writers or readers gatherings, and perhaps indeed sharing and altering your work in a workshop.

In case you’re incapable of dealing with neighborhood poets, there are various spaces online to do so. 

From prompts to assets and support, you’ll discover individual poets online who can offer assistance and keep you centered and driven in your interest in being a poet.

This practice benefits poets in two ways. To begin with, it energizes you to type in due to the responsibility figure. Second, it makes writing a more community-driven poem possible, like being in a room and slamming your head in the work area since you’re not feeling propelled.

4. Use poetry journals and prompts

This is another way to write a poem. There are few better ways to break through a writer’s square than by reveling in special poetry prompts. If you’re longing to form past poetry, take a guided writing journal. 

By the way, these sorts of journals change broadly. A few journals plan for you how to write a poem every day; some journals and prompts provide to-do calendars, whereas others are there for you once you require them. Either way, writing prompts are a reliable way to induce you to think outside the box.

5. Discover your writing style

You have learned the essentials of how to write a poem. You’ve written a few poems you’re fixated on, and a few, well, you arrange on re-visiting. You experimented with different forms and styles. 

Now, you’ll begin to characterize your poetic style. Right now, micropoetry is trending. This style is known to be short, basic, and to the point. Are you having a difficult time being limited and to the point? 

Attempt to use metaphorical language, representation, and symbolism in your poem. Do your poems not fit in one style? There isn’t a strict policy on poetry writing. Use it as a way to precise yourself inventively and make it your possession.

6. Edit your poem

Editing is the most momentous thing about how to write a poem. Regardless of the poem you write, the more times you edit it, the more likely it is to be unprecedented, which will increase your enthusiasm for writing poetry. While you edit your poem, you can talk with experienced poets.

7. Choosing the topic

Knowing how to write a poem, try to choose a topic in which you are really interested.

Whether you’re assigned to write about any topic or you are choosing your own topic, it is vital that you simply choose your title. Anything can ignite your thoughts, so look around for motivation in case you do not know beyond any doubt what to write about. 

Reading distinctive poems can, moreover, be an awesome offer of assistance. Topics can be current events, people in your life, nature, battles of individuals in society, etc. Make a note of all the things that you just took note of that drove you to select this point. 

The exceptional way to begin is to begin with freewriting. You’ll be able to note down the focuses, and after that, let them coalesce in your intellect into a common shape and structure that suits a poem.

Read more: How to Write a Novel For Beginners

8. Capture your emotion

To analyze how to write a poem, you must write the poem through your emotions and inner feelings. Choose topics that are connected to your emotions. It will be beneficial for your poem writing. You can smoothly complete your poem.

Example of an emotional poem:

9. choose words carefully.

When you write poetry, you must be careful with your word choice. Because if you can’t choose the right words, then the audience will not be interested in reading your poem. So choose the words for the poem in such a way that they touch the heart of the audience.

10. Specific techniques

Though writers want to know how to write a poem, they can apply various techniques, such as freewriting, exploring new surroundings, or drawing inspiration from diverse sources, that can help break through creative barriers when writing poetry.

[Video] How to Write Poetry for Beginners

In conclusion, making a compelling poem requires a delicate balance of feeling, symbolism, and etymological creativity. By imbuing veritable feelings, making distinctive symbolism, playing with sound, choosing words mindfully, testing with structure, and grasping the modification process, you’ll open the poetic potential within you. Each poem may be an interesting expression, and through these tips, you’ll set out on a journey of self-discovery and imaginative exploration within the domain of poetry.

FAQs on How To Write a Poem

What is the exact format for writing a poem.

There is no specific format for writing a poem. Because it’s like free writing on your own.

How emotion is crucial to writing a compelling poem?

Writing your poem with veritable emotions can essentially improve its impact, making it a more important and relatable experience for readers.

How can I edit my poem to enhance its overall quality?

Editing is a crucial part of the writing process. Take time to edit your poem, focusing on clarity, rhythm, and coherence. Seeking feedback from others can provide valuable insights for improvement.

Can anyone learn to write poetry, or is it a skill naturally?

Writing poetry is a skill that can be gained with practice and a genuine passion for self-expression. While some may have natural sources, anyone can learn and improve their poetic abilities over time.

How we've reviewed this article

Our content is thoroughly researched and fact-checked using reputable sources. While we aim for precision, we encourage independent verification for complete confidence.

We keep our articles up-to-date regularly to ensure accuracy and relevance as new information becomes available.

• Current Version
• Feb 17th, 2024
• Feb 9th, 2024

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Online poetry writing at school – comparing lower secondary students’ experiences between individual and collaborative poetry writing provisionally accepted.

• 1 University of Helsinki, Finland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

This study investigates how seventh-grade students experience online collaborative writing, its support in writing poems, and how collaboratively and individually written poems differ. The educational design research method was used in this mixed-methods study, which was conducted in natural classroom settings to investigate students' individual and collaborative poetry writing. The quantitative analysis of questionnaires and qualitative thematic analysis of post-experimental interviews show that the students enjoyed collaborative writing more and found it more accessible than individual writing. They experienced that it supported them in writing better poems and increased their writing confidence. They also appreciated the support of teamwork, although individual writing gave them more liberty to explore various aspects of poetry and express their feelings. From a pedagogical point of view, the students need to be provided with opportunities for collaborative poetry writing to make the writing process easier and more enjoyable. Online collaborative writing supports the process of poetry writing.

Keywords: Digital tool, technology in education, online poetry writing, collaborative writing Online Poetry Writing at School -Comparing Lower Secondary Students' Experiences between Individual and Collaborative Poetry Writing, poetry writing

Received: 02 Feb 2024; Accepted: 22 Apr 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Kangasharju, Ilomäki and Toom. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mx. Arja Kangasharju, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

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All's fair in love and poetry? How to write a poem (with a little help from Taylor Swift)

Will Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album “The Tortured Poets Department” usher in a new era of poetry appreciation ?

Delaney Atkins, a part-time instructor at Austin Peay State University who teaches a class exploring Swift’s music's connection to Romanticism , hopes this album will help people realize the power of poetry as “one of the purest forms of human expression.”

“Poetry is not a scary thing,” she says. “If it’s something that (Swift) reads and leans into , I’m hopeful that other people will take it as an opportunity to do the same and not be afraid of feeling like they aren’t smart enough or it’s not accessible enough.”

How to write a poem

Ever heard the saying “the best writers are readers”? The first step to writing a poem is figuring out what you like about poetry.

Check out: USA TODAY's weekly Best-selling Booklist

Is it imagery? Format? Rhyme? Start by sampling a few poets. Maya Angelou, William Wordsworth, Frank O’Hara, Sylvia Plath and Amanda Gorman are among the greats. Look to your favorite songwriters and ask yourself, "What do I admire about their craft?" Atkins also recommends looking for a poem about a subject you're passionate about.

“I promise you, there’s a poem for everyone,” she says.

Next, decide what you want to write about. Simple as it sounds, this can often be the hardest step for writers. What do you want to say?

Finally, decide how you’re going to write it.

Atkins recommends starting with metaphors and similes , which Swift often employs. Some metaphors are more obvious, like in “Red,” when she sings “Losing him was blue, like I’d never known/Missing him was dark gray, all alone.” She uses a simile when she says “Loving him was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street.”

If you’re writing about a relationship, ask yourself what it felt like. “This relationship feels like … a burning bridge,” is Atkins's example. You can stick to a single line or make it an extended metaphor with an entire poem about that bridge.

Use imagery, or visually descriptive language, to help tell the story. Look around the room and describe the setting using lofty prose or personify the objects around you. Or create a character and tell their story – think of Swift’s love triangle in the “Betty,” “Cardigan” and “August” trilogy or “No Body, No Crime,” in which she slips into the skin of a vengeance-seeking best friend.

Do poems have to rhyme?

While many of Swift's songs rhyme, it’s not required in poetry.

“There are no rules and that’s a good thing, it’s a freeing thing,” Atkins says. “Take that and run with it – be as creative as possible.”

Review: Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets' is hauntingly brilliant

Taylor Swift has always been a member of 'The Tortured Poets Department'

In Atkins’ class, Swift's 10 previous albums are on the syllabus. Some connections to poetry are more overt, like Swift’s reference to English poet William Wordsworth in “The Lakes.”

But Atkins also teaches the motifs and literary devices that Swift uses throughout her discography, like the repetition of rain . In “Fearless” Swift alludes to naively running and dancing in the rain. Later in “Clean” from “1989,” rain is a baptismal metaphor for washing away the addiction of a past relationship. On “Peace,” off of “Folklore,” Swift sings about rain as a manifestation of her anxieties. 

She uses the extended metaphor of death and dying in several songs. Atkins points to “dying in secret” in 2009’s “Cold As You” as representative of shame (“And I know you wouldn’t have told nobody if I died, died for you”). In 2020’s “peace” death is a symbol of unconditional love (“All these people think love’s for show/But I would die for you in secret”). She also repeatedly references her death throughout “My Tears Ricochet” – “And if I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake?”

Poem ideas inspired by Taylor Swift

Want to become a “Tortured Poet” yourself? Here are some prompts to kickstart your poetry era.

• Use a five-dollar word: Who else could fit “clandestine” and “mercurial” in a song? Use an unexpected word from Swift's work, like “elegies,” “unmoored,” “calamitous,” “ingenue” or “gauche” as a jumping-off point.
• Write a poem based on one of the “eras” : Tell a girl-next-door love story based on “Taylor Swift,” a bitter heartbreak for “Red” or the tale of your slandered character for “Reputation.”
• Write about your “invisible strings”: The “invisible string theory” hypothesizes that there’s some larger force at work laying the groundwork to lead us to our destinies. In “invisible string,” Swift writes about the path that led her to a romantic partner. Write about your own.
• Paint the image of a season: It's tempting to break out your flannels and drive to go leaf-peeping after listening to "All Too Well." In literature, fall often represents change. Pick a season and describe it using imagery – how does that season represent what your poem is about?
• Use rain as a metaphor: Take inspiration from Swift's many uses of rain, which sometimes symbolizes losing yourself in a passionate moment but other times indicates a cleansing or sadness.
• Take a spin on a classic: Swift invokes classic literature in “Love Story” when she sings “You were Romeo I was a scarlet letter.” How can you put a modern take on classic tropes ?
• Retell history: This is precisely what Swift does in “The Last Great American Dynasty” when she tells the story of Rebekah Harkness , a socialite who lived in the Rhode Island house Swift bought in 2013. Who can you use as a muse?
• Play with color: A whole essay could be written about Swift's use of the color “blue.” Try out a common color symbol (like blue for sadness, red for passion, green for envy) or flip it on its head entirely and have it represent a new emotion.
• Use the year you were born: Swift's “1989” symbolizes her artistic rebirth . Title your poem the year you were born. How can you emerge as a poet reborn? 
• Random lyric generator: Still stumped? Use this random lyric generator and use that phrase as the theme or first line of your poem. Just make sure to credit Swift if you post it anywhere online.
• Write about “The Tortured Poets Department”: What would it look like if it was a real place? Assume the role of Chairman of the Tortured Poets Department and craft your world of punished poets. 

Tortured poets: Is Taylor Swift related to Emily Dickinson?

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USA TODAY is exploring the questions you and others ask every day. From "How to get on BookTok" to "What does 'era' mean?" to "Where to buy cheap books?" – we're striving to find answers to the most common questions you ask every day. Head to our Just Curious section to see what else we can answer for you. 

Why You Should Read Poetry All Year

To really kickstart your creative thinking, read poems often..

Posted April 23, 2024 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

• We need new ideas and thought combinations to solve daily challenges.

Poetry can help us think differently.

• A poet uses high-level creative thinking to write a poem. The result can spark creative thinking in readers.

Is it just me, or is Poetry Month everywhere this year?

Poet Mary Ruefle had something to say about this:

Every April, since the establishment of National Poetry Month, I receive a call from my local library or high school, asking if I will participate in a reading. How about November? I always ask, and the answer is always the same: People aren’t interested then; April is the month poetry goes public. (from Madness, Rack, and Honey )

While I appreciate the airtime poetry is receiving this month, my mission today is to convince you to care about poems into May and beyond.

Why You Should Care About Poems in May

When was the last time, in the physical world, you saw something that startled your senses? You turned toward the scene as emotion kindled within: awe , surprise, fear , love.

One of my favorite poets, Jane Hirshfield, wrote: “Many good poems have a kind of window-moment in them—they change their direction of gaze in a way that suddenly opens a broadened landscape of meaning and feeling.” (from Ten Windows )

Poems Open Windows in the Mind

A powerful poem ignites a thought-spark, loosening the trend of your thinking from the ruts of conformity and the latest righteous cause downloaded to your brain from the internet.

To write a powerful poem requires solitude, self- denial (of screens), time, and concentration —four ingredients that result in the highest-tier thinking that we call creativity .

Originality infused in the work affects the reader as it sparks new ways of seeing, fresh possibilities, and reinvigorated feelings.

Hirshfield again from Ten Windows : “A good poem is a solvent, a kind of WD-40 for the soul . . . To feel oneself moved creates in itself an increase of freedom.”

Specifically, it increases freedom of thought—freedom from thinking the way others are thinking or from the way we have thought before.

Don't we need new thoughts in our daily lives?

Constantly we are tasked with solving problems:

• how to respond to a surly teen or disgruntled customer
• how to most effectively teach a difficult concept to a classroom of students
• how to think up the latest market-defying innovation to move our business forward

The best way to solve these problems is to make new combinations of thought. Poetry can help us do this.

Why You Might Resist

That said, some people resist poetry because quite a bit of contemporary poetry is so jarring that it shakes the reader too much. Or it’s so obscure that it keeps the reader out and makes you feel dumb for not understanding its very hidden message.

In fact, I went through a long period during which I avoided contemporary poetry because I found the images in many poems so disturbing and depraved that I didn’t figure I needed them in my life. But then I took a deep dive and began to discover many insightful, thought-provoking poets.

Presently, I’m on a quest to collect poetry that stirs thought without the trendy shock-and-awe approach but with failsafe original thinking that probably resulted from a poet's solitude, self-denial (of screens), time, and concentration. I can share a small selection of this poetry with you through this Poetry Guide that includes favorite poetry books for beginners or experts.

Of course, you can always go exploring to find just the right poems to inspire your own thought-shift. No matter how you do it, read more poems.

This post also appears on Sparkitivity . Copyright Sparkitivity, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Ruefle, Mary. (2012). Madness, Rack, and Honey. Seattle: Wave Books.

Hirshfield, Jane. (2017). Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World. New York: Knopf.

Kathryn Haydon, MSc , is an innovation strategist, speaker, and author who helps teams and individuals activate and maximize their creative thinking and innovation potential.

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Note that these courses are for the 2024-2025 academic year . To view courses and descriptions for 2023-2024, please see here .

Note on graduate course numbers and levels: Please note that each course carries, along with the ENGL which identifies it as an English Department course, a three digit number, the first digit of which describes the general level of the course, as follows: 500-level - MA students and U3 undergraduates (usually Honours BAs) 600-level - MA and PhD students only 700-level - MA and PhD students only

Note on maximum and minimum enrolments for graduate seminars: Graduate courses are limited to a maximum enrollment of 12 (for 6/700-level courses) or 15 students (for 500-level courses). 500-level courses with an enrollment of fewer than 7 students, and 600- or 700-level courses with an enrollment of fewer than 4 students, will not be offered except in special circumstances. Note on registration in graduate courses: Courses are open to students in Department of English programs.  Students from outside the Department may enroll if space permits and if they have appropriate preparation for the course. In this case, students must seek the permission of the instructor and the Graduate Program Director to register. 500-level courses are restricted to an enrollment of 15 students and are open to Master's and advanced undergraduate students. B.A. students must receive permission from the instructor before registering for a 500-level course.    As a general rule, M.A. students are permitted to take two courses at the 500-level and Ph.D. students may only exceptionally register for 500-level courses after receiving permission from the Graduate Program Director . But PhD students should certainly not overlook 500-level courses when making their course selections, particularly if the subject matter of a particular course makes a good fit for a PhD student’s research interests. Similarly, an M.A. student who has a good justification for taking a third 500-level seminar should contact the Graduate Program Director to be given permission to register for it. Please click on the “full course description” link below any of the following course titles to find a detailed description of the course goals, the reading list, and the method of evaluation.

ENGL 503 - 18th Century

The villain-hero.

Professor David Hensley​ Winter 2025 Time: TBA

Full course description

Prerequisites: limited to Honours and MA students (see note below)

Description: This course will contextualize the villain-hero of eighteenth-century English literature in a European tradition of philosophical, religious, and political problems, social criticism, and artistic commentary from the Renaissance to Romanticism. Against the background of representations of the desire for knowledge and power in Elizabethan drama, the anthropology of Caroline political theory, Satanic revolt in Milton, and libertine devilry in Rochester and Restoration plays, we will examine the villain-hero as a figure of persistently fascinating evil power – a power subversively critical as well as characteristically satiric, obscene, and cruel in its skepticism, debauchery, and criminality. The readings will focus especially on two examples of this figure, Faust and Don Juan, whose development we will consider from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.

Texts: Books ( tentative, to be confirmed in January 2025) will be available at The Word Bookstore, 469 Milton Street, 514-845-5640.

• Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (Norton, Hackett, or Cambridge recommended)
• Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
• Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Hackett, Oxford, or Penguin recommended)
• La Rochefoucauld, Maxims and Reflections (Oxford recommended; or Penguin)
• John Wilmot, second earl of Rochester, Selected Poems (Oxford) or Selected Works (Penguin)
• William Wycherley, The Country Wife
• William Congreve, The Way of the World
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust. Part One (Oxford or Norton)
• Pierre Choderos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Oxford or Penguin)
• Giovanni Giacomo Casanova, The Story of My Life (Penguin)
• Lord Byron, Don Juan (Penguin)
• Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin (Penguin recommended)

Films: Usually, one film will be shown each week. Viewing the films is a requirement of the course, and attendance at the screenings is an expected form of participation. Most screening sessions will last about two hours in a supplementary period following the seminar; some films will be longer. (The following list of films is provisional.)

• Jan Svankmejer, Don Juan (1970) and Faust (1994)
• Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (Greenwich Theatre, London; Stage on Screen, 2010)
• F. W. Murnau, Faust (1926)
• Hector Berlioz, La Damnation de Faust (dir. Sylvain Cambreling, 1999; and others)
• Charles Gounod, Faust (dir. Antonio Pappano, 2010)
• Alexandr Sokurov, Faust (2011)
• Wycherley, The Country Wife (1992); and Congreve, The Way of the World (1997)
• Stephen Frears, Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
• Mozart, Don Giovanni (dir. Nikolaus Harnoncourt, 1996; and others)
• Rupert Edwards, The Real Don Giovanni (1996)
• Benoit Jacquot, Sade (1999)
• Frederico Fellini, Fellini’s Casanova (1976)
• Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin (dir. Daniel Barenboim, 2007; and others)

Evaluation: A substantial amount of careful reading, a class presentation, and a close analysis of texts both in seminar discussion and in a final 20-page paper will constitute the work of the course. Weighting: paper (60%), presentation (20%), general participation (20%). Regular attendance is mandatory.

Format: seminar

Note on enrollment: Permission of the instructor is required. Enrollment is limited to 15 MA and advanced undergraduate students. Honours students in their final year have priority. MA and Honours students may register for this course but must confirm their registration with the instructor. All others must consult the instructor before registering. Students who are interested in taking this seminar but cannot register in Minerva should contact the instructor. (Please bear in mind that electronic registration does not constitute the instructor’s permission.)

ENGL 505 - 20th Century

Listen to this: sound, voice, music, noise.

Professor Allan Hepburn Fall 2024 Time: TBA

Description: This course concerns sound in different media, mostly fiction, but also sound sculpture, sound diaries, sound-tracks, sound poetry, choruses and refrains, drama, opera, instrumental music, and song. A premise of this course is that literary texts create soundworlds and soundscapes. In some cases, they appeal to music, noise, dialogue, accents, and silences to communicate meaning. In other cases, they use sound effects—rhyme, for example—to widen the acoustic range of the text. What would it mean to interpret literary texts for their sonic dimensions? Is it possible to listen to a novel or a poem rather than read it? Does literature give access to the past, the future, or alternative realities when it appeals to sound? For some writers, literature operates like a recording technology, akin to a gramophone, cassette player, or MP3 file. These recording techniques allow sound to be transmitted to readers in diverse locations in ways that resemble the transmission of literary texts. In order to think about enhanced listening as a critical resource, we will consider acousmatic and non-acousmatic sounds, sounds as clues, sound and affect, sound and ideas, sound editing. We will also discuss prosody, telephony, sound theft, privacy, eavesdropping, eroticism, and racialized voices as acoustic properties within texts. Secondary readings will involve short theoretical pieces by R. Murray Schafer, Michel Chion, Jacques Attali, Walter Murch, and others. Listening exercises will supplement primary texts.

Texts (tentative):

• Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata
• Mavis Gallant, “The Concert Party”
• Margeurite Yourcenar, Alexis
• Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues
• Jean Cocteau, The Human Voice
• Robert Chesley, Jerker
• Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet
• Toni Morrison, Jazz
• Russell Smith, Noise
• selected poems by Auden, Bishop, Hughes, Dryden, Ondaatje, Bök, and others
• The Conversation
• Janet Cardiff, “Paradise Institute”

Evaluation: attendance and participation (20%); recitation of a poem (10%); short paper (30%); long paper (50%)

Format: Seminar.

ENGL 512 - Contemp Studies in Lit&Culture / EAST 515 - Seminar: Beyond Orientalism

Literary cultures of east and south asia.

Professor Sandeep Banerjee  (English) Professor Gal Gvili (East Asian Studies) Fall 2024 Time: TBA

Description: How do literary and cultural texts speak to the experience of modernity in South and East Asia? We seek to illuminate this question by investigating common and diverging literary portrayals of such modern concerns as the making of national languages, the experience of colonialism, and the early formation of feminism, within emerging modern genres and forms such as realism, the short poem, the epic, and the novel. Our goal is to place the specificities of Asian forms of literary modernity and aesthetics in conversation with global theories and scholarship.

Texts : (provisional)

• Epic: The Slaying of Meghnad by M.M. Dutt (selections); Six Records of a Floating Life by Shen Fu (selections)
• Poems by Rabindranath Tagore, Jibanananda Das, Sukanta Bhattacharya, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Bing Xin, and Xu Zhimo;
• Short stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Sadat Hasan Manto, Rasheed Jahan, Mao Dun, Lu Xun, Xu Dishan;
• Novels by Bankim Chatterji, Attia Hossain, Jhumpa Lahiri, Wu Zhuoliu, Ba Jin, Nieh Hualing, and Xiao Hong

This is an indicative list; course texts will be finalized closer to the start of the course.

Evaluation:  Response papers; paper proposal; final essay.

Format:  Seminar.

ENGL 528 - Canadian Literature

Food voices in canadian literature.

Professor Nathalie Cooke Fall 2025 Time: TBA

Description: Why do authors feed their characters? Yes, it can make fiction seem more realistic, poetry more evocative. But there are other reasons deserving our attention. In this course we will explore how listening to stories told in Canadian literature’s “food voices” offers readers compelling ways of investigating the shifting boundaries of gender, socio-economic class, community, and culture over time in Canadian society. Class discussions will tackle thorny questions in relation to specific texts and within the analytical frameworks of literary food studies. Readings will include well-known works by Canada’s most lauded writers (e.g. Margaret Atwood, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Rohinton Mistry, Alice Munro, Eden Robinson, and Gabrielle Roy) to explore a range of food voices and how literary texts create meaning through inclusion of non-verbal narratives involving food selection, service, and consumption. We will also discover ways in which sharing food, or the longing for food, is a major theme and vehicle for metaphor in other works by Canadian writers (among them, George Eliott Clarke, Marilyn Dumont, Hiromi Goto, Rabindranath Maharaj, Drew Hayden Taylor, Fred Wah). We will question how food voices support or undermine the dominant trajectory of textual meaning creation. How do food choices serve to define an individual or community in relation to others? What narrative emerges from the food choices made in the text? What do food scenes tell us about gender roles and expectations, the process of migration and cultural adaptation? In what way do food scenes serve to structure the work, signposting notions of time and alternative ways of timekeeping? Where literary analysis differs from folkloristic or sociological study is the close attention it pays to the form in which food voices speak in literary texts. Consequently the class will pay close attention to literary form, to how authors’ choices of mode, genre, and rhetorical device animate food voices and shape stories they can tell. Secondary readings theorizing the food voice (Lucy Long) and writing the meal (Sandra Gilbert, Diane McGee, and Anna Shapiro) will contextualize our investigations. However, students should be aware that there has been very little written about food scenes in Canadian literature specifically, despite an extraordinary abundance and variety of primary material. Existing bibliographies (e.g., Gilbert, Kiell) and studies of food in literature consistently overlook Canada’s contributions – with the notable exception of Atwood’s own, now very dated, The Canlit Foodbook (1987). At one level, then, this course and work developed through it aims to be an important critical intervention.

Texts : In addition to a library of online materials made available through the McGill Library and MyCourses, including commentaries and short stories and poems, full-length texts will include a selection of six from the following:

• Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (1908)
• Mordecai Richler, Solomon Gursky Was Here (1989)
• George Elliott Clarke, Whylah Falls (1990)
• Hiromi Goto, Chorus of Mushrooms (1994)
• Fred Wah, Diamond Grill (1996)
• Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach (2000)
• Dionne Brand, What We all Long For (2005)
• Margaret Atwood, Maddaddam (2013)
• Michelle Good, Five Little Indians (2020)
• Suzette Mayr, Sleeping Car Porter (2022)

Evaluation: seminar presentation (15%), bibliographical essay (30%), research paper (40%), active participation in every class meeting (15%)

Format:  Seminar and discussion.

ENGL 533 - Literary Movements

Restoration poetry and culture.

Professor Maggie Kilgour Winter 2025 Time: TBA

Description: In 1649, the English people cut off the head of a king named Charles and established a new revolutionary government. In 1660, that revolution came full circle when they put the crown on the head of another king named Charles and went back to a monarchy, celebrating the “Restoration” of England’s old and true order. However, the revolutionaries had themselves claimed that they were restoring the ancient liberties of the English people which had been undermined by the innovations of the king. Similarly, the Protestant Reformation had been imagined as the return to the original spirit of the Gospels, uncontaminated by Popish institutions. In the seventeenth century everyone seemed mad with nostalgia for some purer, free time they longed to get back to.

In this seminar we will look at a range of literatures written between 1660, the year of the “Restoration,” and 1688, the year of the “Glorious” or “Bloodless Revolution.” We will consider how writers tried to make sense of the trauma of a civil war which had torn apart families and resulted in deaths of more than two hundred thousand people. It is easy to imagine the attraction of looking back from this mess to some fictitious time of ideal peace, and such nostalgia is still embedded in English mythology today. The Restoration order was deeply precarious, shaken by the outbreak of the plague, the great fire of London, war with Holland, unresolved religious and class conflicts, as well as a dissolute and heirless monarch. However, while full of yearning for a mythic past (it’s no coincidence that this is the time of Paradise Lost ), this unstable time released an outbreak of astonishing creativity. It produced revolutionary works of political science (itself emerging as a field), natural science, religious faith, drama, poetry, and prose, and had room for writings as diverse as the raunchy poetry of Rochester and the tight couplets of Dryden, the seminal works of political theory of Hobbes and Locke, the sci-fi of Cavendish, and the intense religious experiences of Bunyan, Traherne, and Hutchison. The government was reimagined, the first scientific society established, and the nation became a global empire conquering through trade, above all a growing slave-driven sugar business. Women performed on stage and began to write in significant numbers. Underneath the myth of return to the past, England was transformed.

Texts: (tentative)

• Rochester, selected (but not censored!) poems
• John Dryden, selected poetry and plays
• Andrew Marvell, selected poetry
• Samuel Butler, selections from Hudibras
• Selections from Locke and Hobbes
• Abraham Cowley, “Ode to the Royal Society”; De Plantis 5-6 (translated Nahum Tate, Aphra Behn)
• Thomas Spratt, selections from History of the Royal Society
• William Davenant (with William Shakespeare), Macbeth
• Aphra Behn, Oroonoko ; The Rover
• Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World
• Lucy Hutchison, selections from Order and Disorder
• John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress
• Thomas Traherne, selections from the poetry and Centuries of Meditation
• Milton, Samson Agonistes
• Samuel Pepys, selection from the Diary (just for fun)

Evaluation: book review (10%); short (15 minute) presentation (20%); research/interpretive paper (50%); active participation (20%)

Format: seminar discussions; presentations

ENGL 540 - Literary Theory 1

Theories of the archive.

Professor Camille Owens Fall 2024 Time: TBA

Description : What is an archive? And what is the place of “the archive” in literary studies? Or in literature? In this seminar, we will approach these questions in theory and method. We will trace the historical and institutional formation of archives, examining the power dynamics they reproduce and the issues of provenance that trouble them. We will investigate methods for the keeping and transmission of knowledge that have existed outside of traditional archives, and the possibilities and perils of impermanency. And we will examine where archives appear in, inform, or form contemporary literary works. Throughout our readings, we will ask the question: what are the formal boundaries of an/the archive? What can, and cannot, be housed in an archive? Readings will include works by: Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Brent Edwards, Saidiya Hartman, Ann Cvetkovich, Mishuana Goeman, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Arlette Farge, Carolyn Steedman, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Robin Coste Lewis, Ocean Vuong, Valeria Luiselli, Namwali Serpell, and Jesmyn Ward.

Selected Texts :

• Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past (1995)
• Saidiya Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts,” (2008)
• Michel Foucault, “The Lives of Infamous Men,” (1977)
• Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever (1995)
• Robin Coste Lewis, To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness (2022)
• Namwali Serpell, The Furrows (2021)
• Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive (2019)

Evaluation : seminar presentation (15%), short essay (30%), research paper (40%), active participation in every class meeting (15%)

Format : Seminar

ENGL 545 - Topics in Literature & Society

Write, protest, resist: women’s work in the revolutionary age.

Professor Carmen Mathes Fall 2024 Time: TBA

Description: When Percy Shelley wrote, “Let a great Assembly be / Of the fearless and the free” he was responding to an 1819 massacre of peaceful protesters. The crowd included many women, some carrying banners and flags, some carrying children, and all hoping for change. At stake was expanding voting rights. Not to include women, mind you, but to allow their working-class brothers, husbands, and fathers to have a voice in parliament. In the aftermath of the violence, perpetrated by what we might now call a volunteer police force, Shelley envisions each woman as akin to moral compass who will “point” to the perpetrators to turn them away in shame.

During the Romantic era in Britain, women’s roles in the political life of their community and country, at home and abroad, were debated, characterized and caricatured, and as often as not ignored. Shelley’s “great Assembly” reflects the historical reality of women’s participation and raises larger questions about what women were understood to be able to contribute, and what they did contribute, to social and political movements in the “revolutionary age” of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

This is a course about politics and gender in (mostly) British poetry and nonfiction prose. We will read works by a variety of Romantic-era authors including Mary Wollstonecraft, Edmund Burke, Olympe de Gouges, Charlotte Smith. Mary Robinson, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Anne Yearsley, Phillis Wheatley Peters, Germaine de Staël, Percy Shelley, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Anna Liddiard, and others. We will explore women’s responses to the revolution in France and the Napoleonic wars; questions of migration and dispossession; fights over labour reform; efforts to improve women’s educations; and activities of abolitionists seeking to end the transatlantic slave trade. Along the way, we will explore historical and contemporary feminism(s) and feminist literary criticism.

• The Broadview Anthology of Romantic Poetry, edited by Joseph Black et al., Broadview, 2016, ISBN 9781554811311

Evaluation: participation (10%); book review (15%); proposal (15%); scholarly literature review (20%); final research essay (40%)

ENGL 566 - Special Studies in Drama 1

The trans eighteenth century.

Professor Fiona Ritchie Winter 2025 Time TBA

Description: This course will examine examples of cross-dressing in the long eighteenth century with the goal of exploring how the period understood sex and gender. Taking as its starting point the shift in representation that occurred in the English theatre from 1660 onwards when women began to play Shakespeare’s cross-dressed heroines (roles that were originally written for boy actors), we will consider actresses who made their name in breeches parts and travesty roles (such as Margaret Woffington and Dorothy Jordan) and examples of men dressing as women in performance (such as David Garrick as Sir John Brute in The Provoked Wife and the roles that Samuel Foote wrote for himself). The autobiography of Charlotte Charke, a performer who dressed as a man inside and outside the theatre, will take us beyond the stage and into society. Other examples of real-life cross-dressers will include Hannah Snell (a female soldier), pirates Ann Bonny and Mary Reade, Mary Hamilton (who allegedly duped another woman into marriage by posing as a man), and the Chevalier d’Éon (who infiltrated the court of the Empress of Russia as a woman). Snell and d’Éon return us to the theatre as both performed in stage shows that showcased the unique ways in which they chose to express their gender identity.

Our discussion will be informed by scholarship on cross-dressing (Marjorie Garber, Laurence Senelick, Ula Lukszo Klein) and transgender eighteenth-century studies (Julia Ftacek, Jen Manion). We will consider cross-dressing as a way of expressing gender and/or sexuality, an opportunity for objectification and eroticisation, a practice that generated fears of deception, and a means of liberation. Throughout the course we will interrogate whether contemporary ideas of gender as spectrum rather than binary are in fact new.

Texts (provisional) :

Primary texts may include:

• Shakespeare’s cross-dressing plays (e.g., Twelfth Night ) and adaptations of them
• Aphra Behn, The Rover (1677)
• George Farquhar, The Constant Couple (1700) and The Recruiting Officer (1706)
• Henry Fielding, The Female Husband (1746)
• The Female Soldier; Or, The Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell (1750)
• A Narrative of the Life of Mrs Charlotte Charke (1755)
• David Garrick, The Male Coquette (1757)

Other readings may include:

• Contextual primary source material (such as performance reviews, actor biographies, pamphlets, newspaper commentary)
• Historical fiction/drama
• Critical essays on primary sources
• Theoretical readings

Evaluation (tentative) : participation (20%) ; research presentation (20%) ; conference abstract and annotated bibliography (10%) ; paper (50%)

Format: Seminars based on group discussion (hence thorough preparation and consistent participation will be crucial)

ENGL 585 - Cultural Studies: Film

Image/sound/text.

Professor Ara Osterweil Fall 2024 Time: TBA. Class Meetings: once weekly, for three hours. Mandatory Weekly Screening: once weekly, for three hours.

Prerequisites: You must be a graduate student OR an undergraduate Honours student to register for this course; in all other cases, you need special permission from the instructor to register.

Expected Student Preparation: Please note that it is both a critical studies seminar AND a creative workshop. Some fluency in critical theory, cultural studies and/or art history is expected. Background in visual art, performance, poetry, dance, or music is encouraged but not required.

Description: This hybrid seminar/workshop is designed to: (1) teach students to respond critically and creatively to experimental art and literature; (2) enable students to create experimental forms of writing and visual media that respond to the texts we study.

Calling all creative misfits who long to engage in forms of critical thinking that expand beyond the traditional scholarly essay! By focusing on multi-media artworks that interrogate and undermine conventional forms of representation through their contrapuntal use of image, sound, and text, we shall explore how meaning in contemporary art is often generated across multiple registers. Over the course of the semester, students will be introduced to important examples of experimental film and video, poetry, Conceptual art, body art, photography, and installation art from the 1960s to the present. In addition to writing critically about these works, students will be asked to experiment with some of the artistic strategies we study to create their own self-directed artistic, literary, critical, or curatorial projects. In other words, students will not only be expected to discuss, think, and write about the works we study, but to design and execute creative projects that respond meaningfully to them. Occasionally, local and/or international artists will be invited to class to give special seminars and workshops. On other occasions, the class will meet outside of our normal meeting time and place to participate in screenings, exhibitions, and performances.

Films and artworks:

• Christmas on Earth (Barbara Rubin, US, 1963)
• Scorpio Rising (Kenneth Anger, US, 1963)
• Wavelength (Michael Snow, US, 1967)
• T.O.U.C.H.I.N.G. (Paul Sharits, US, 1968)
• Fly (Yoko Ono, US, 1971)
• ( nostalgia ) (Hollis Frampton, US, 1971)
• Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (Jonas Mekas, US, 1972)
• Kitch’s Last Meal (Carolee Schneemann, US, 1973-1976)
• News from Home (Chantal Akerman, US/ Belgium, 1977)
• Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, France, 1983)
• The Blind. At Home (Sophie Calle, France, 1986)
• Tongues Untied (Marlon Riggs, US, 1989)
• Blue (Derek Jarman, UK, 1993)
• From Here I Saw What Happened and Cried (Carrie Mae Weems, 1995-1996)
• Les Goddesses (Moyra Davey, US, 2011)
• Love is the Message, The Message is Death (Arthur Jafa, US, 2016)
• Bird Calls (David Baumflek, Canada, 2018)
• Altiplano (Malena Szlam, Canada, 2018)
• earthearthearth (Daichi Saito, Canada, 2021)
• Quiet as its Kept ( Ja Tovia Gary, United States, 2023)
• Selected films by Sky Hopinka, including Lore (2019), When You’re Lost in the Rain (2018) and I’ll Remember You as You Were Not as What You’ll Become (2016)
• Feral Domestic (Sheilah & Dani Restack, 2022)

Texts: (provisional)

• Chantal Akerman, My Mother Laughs
• Terrance Hayes, American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin
• Fred Moten, All That Beauty
• Yoko Ono, Grapefruit
• Ara Osterweil, Flesh Cinema: The Corporeal Turn in American Avant-Garde Film
• Christina Sharpe, Ordinary Notes
• Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Noopiming

Format: seminar, workshop, student “crit,” and mandatory weekly screening

Evaluation: short form writing; experimental slideshow (text + image); video portrait; final essay, video, manuscript, or installation

ENGL 607 - Middle English Literature

Piers plowman: visions for a just society .

Professor Michael Van Dussen Fall 2024 Time: TBA

Description: William Langland’s protean allegory Piers Plowman , written and revised over the last quarter of the fourteenth century, would come to inspire protesting labourers in 1381 and any number of religious reformists who found the plowman “Piers” to be a fitting mouthpiece for their critiques of institutional ills throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This embryonic allegorical poem begins in a “fair field full of folk” but quickly explodes into a challenging examination of the causes of injustice, societal division, and a quest to learn—through a process of intense questioning—how best to live in an imperfect world. In the process, Langland explores the workings of the English legal and educational systems; the corrupt exercise of authority; ethical treatment of the poor and the disabled; the workings of the mind, the soul, and the natural world; and virtually every branch and level of medieval society. Though the poem does envision the betterment of society, utopian fantasy is fleeting, quickly undermined in an enormously complex and troubling series of visions that refuse to “arrive” at a static or prescriptive program for living. Its protagonists witness and experience suffering and injustice, even as they imagine alternatives. The series of dreams and waking moments that make up Piers Plowman thus present visions “for,” but not necessarily “of,” a just society, all the while drawing on sophisticated traditions of theological, political, philosophical, and scientific learning.

Topics to be explored in this seminar include, but are not limited to, the just treatment of the poor; labour conditions; excess and material possessions; authority and corruption; education and literacy; law and justice; tyranny and revolt; debt and salvation; sin and mercy; the individual in society; and the faculties of the soul. Students in this seminar will read Piers Plowman and a series of poems in the “Plowman Tradition” in the original Middle English. No prior experience with the language is necessary or assumed; portions of several classes will be spent developing proficiency in Middle English.

Texts (provisional):

• William Langland, Piers Plowman (emphasis on the B-Text, with passages to compare from the A, C, and Z versions)
• Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede
• The Ploughman’s Tale
• The Praier and Complaynte of the Ploweman unto Christe
• Mum and the Sothsegger
• Jack Upland , Friar Daw’s Reply , and Upland’s Rejoinder

Evaluation: Short papers (25%); long paper (50%); presentation (10%); participation (15%).

Maximum enrollment: 12 students

ENGL 661 - Seminar of Special Studies

Digital humanities.

Professor Richard So Fall 2024 Time: TBA

Description: This course provides hands-on training in the use of computers and statistical methods to analyze literature – an approach also known as “literary text mining.” In the past ten years, computational methods to study culture, particularly literary texts, have increasingly moved out of the margins. We’ve seen the publication of a string of important articles in major literary studies journals, and the release of several new monographs. At the same time, we’ve seen an increase in the number of academic positions advertised in the “digital humanities” and “cultural analytics” in English and literature departments. As research in this sub-field expands and improves, the digital humanities and cultural analytics will continue to grow, making larger and more significant interventions into the discipline. This course means to prepare graduate students in English and literature to perform applied research in the digital humanities. In this seminar, students will learn how to write computer code in Python – a standard computing language used in data science – and the rudiments of statistical methods useful for a data-driven analysis of literary texts. By the end of the course, students will be able to perform simple to intermediate computational and statistical analysis on literary corpora, such as collocations analysis, most distinctive words analysis, and topic modeling. Most of the core “shallow” methods for text analysis, like simple counting, as well as several “deeper” methods, like vector semantics, will be introduced in a live context. We will leverage the availability of a number of free online corpora – for example, a large collection of English-language novels from 1800 to 1923 – to build case studies. At the same time, the second half of the class will introduce excellent recent examples of digital humanist and cultural analytics research from scholars such as Ted Underwood, Andrew Piper, Lauren Klein, Michael Gavin, and several others. The purpose of this is two-fold: first, to allow students to be aware of the “cutting edge” in this field – the most interesting work that is currently happening – and have an opportunity to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, and second, to allow them to replicate existing examples of DH work from the ground-up. With the instructor’s help, we will often reproduce these arguments to see how they work. Students will thus acquire a useful template to develop their own ideas. There are no prerequisites for this class. All that is required is a healthy dose of curiosity and open-mindedness. The course is aimed at literature students who do not think of themselves as “good at math,” or even imagine themselves as averse to “science.” The class will be challenging to students with no background in quantitative research insofar as it will train them in habits of thought somewhat alien to the humanities, such as mathematical logic and algorithmic thinking. However, the course will entirely be taught through a humanistic lens, meaning that the instructor will introduce all methods and concepts through literary-studies examples and the logic of familiar approaches like close reading. In other words, the course is not a seminar in “computer science”; it is a seminar in humanistic research that ideally will become useful as part of the student’s literary studies toolkit.

• Andrew Piper, Enumerations
• Sarah Allison, Reductive Reading
• Daniel Shore, Cyberformalism
• Ted Underwood, Distant Horizons
• Katherine Bode, A World of Fiction
• Franco Moretti, Distant Reading
• Other texts to be provided on myCourses

Evaluation (provisional) : weekly problem sets (50%); final project (25%); attendance and participation (25%).

Maximum Enrollment: 12 students.

ENGL 662 - Seminar of Special Studies

Modernist reading/reading modernism.

Professor Miranda Hickman Winter 2025 Time: TBA

Description: From the dense allusiveness of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Virginia Woolf’s multi-perspectival free indirect discourse, E.E. Cummings’ typographical antics and Joycean mischief to Gertrude Stein’s experimental “Steinese,” modernist poetry and prose challenged received ways of “how to read”—the phrase is Ezra Pound’s. As Laura Riding and Robert Graves observed in A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927), one of the earliest studies of modernism as a cultural phenomenon, the modernists often occasioned anxiety in the “plain reader,” obliging readers to reimagine their ordinary procedures and acculturate themselves to new ones better adapted to modernist rhythms and idioms. Poet Mina Loy quipped that “one had to go into training” to “get” such work as Stein’s; through both the difficulty of their signaling and often elaborate framing through notes, allusion, or schemata, modernist texts teach us how to read.

Bringing early twentieth-century reception of such modernist work together with current work in attentional studies and debates addressing how our culture reads now (e.g. Lucy Alford, Katherine Hayles, John Guillory, Sharon Marcus and Stephen Best, Rita Felski), this course addressing early twentieth-century experimental work considers how modernist texts demand and repay various modes of “close” reading; what might emerge from engaging them through modes of “distant” and “surface” reading; and how what Shklovsky called the “roughened” language of modernist texts obliges us to enter unfamiliar attentional modes, as well as heightening self-awareness of reading processes. Leading from such work, we also consider how modernist texts feature acts of reading and attention toward their work of observation, critique, and cultural intervention.

• Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
• T.S. Eliot, early poems and The Waste Land
• H.D., HERmione, Asphodel
• James Joyce, excerpts from Ulysses
• Mina Loy, Lost Lunar Baedeker ; Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose
• Marianne Moore, Complete Poems
• Ezra Pound, Cathay and The Cantos
• Muriel Rukeyser, The Book of the Dead
• Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons
• Melvin Tolson, Rendezvous with America
• Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, The Waves

Evaluation: brief essay (25%), weekly responses (10%), oral presentation (20%), final essay (35%), seminar participation (10%)

ENGL 670 - Topics in Cultural Studies

Contemporary theories and practices of embodiment.

Professor Alanna Thain Fall 2024 Time: TBA

Description: Twenty-first-century cultural theory is marked by a corporeal turn, reconsidering questions of embodiment, sensation, affect, and materiality in relation to questions of cultural production, identity, and social and political concerns. This class will read broadly across key theories and perspectives on the body of the last decade, including consideration of authors whose work is seen as foundational to these approaches. In parallel we will explore media, performance, and somatics to explore these questions through exceptional and everyday practices. Key areas of inquiry include feminist, gender, and sexuality studies, with a particular emphasis on women-of-colour feminisms, queer theory, and trans studies; affect theory; critical race theory; Indigenous studies; questions of the nonhuman; disability studies; and theories of immaterial and affective labour. Students will develop a semester-long exploration of a practice of embodiment in dialogue with these works.

Texts may include :

• Sophie Lewis, Full Surrogacy Now
• Sadiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval
• Edna Bonhomme and Alice Spawls, eds., After Sex
• José Munoz, The Sense of Brown
• Mel Chen, Intoxicated: Race, Disability, and Chemical Intimacy across Empire
• Alexander Weheliye, Feenin: R&B Music and the Materiality of BlackFem Voices and Technology
• Paul Preciado, Dysphoria Mundi and Orlando: My Political Biography
• Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life
• Jean Ma, The Edges of Sleep
• Legacy Russell, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto
• Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta, Together, Somehow: Music, Affect, and Intimacy on the Dancefloor
• Katherine McKittrick, Dear Science and Other Stories
• Donna Haraway, Staying With the Trouble
• Leanne Simpson, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance
• Anna Tsing et al , The Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet
• Dylan Robinson, Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies

Evaluation: practices project 70%; weekly responses 30%

Format: seminar and workshops

ENGL 680 - Canadian Literature

Alice munro.

Professor Robert Lecker Winter 2025 Time: TBA

Description: This course follows the career of an author who has been called “the best fiction writer now working in North America.” It starts by examining Lives of Girls and Women , Alice Munro’s first and only novel (really a collection of linked short stories) about a young female narrator coming of age in a small country town. In that work, Munro found the voice that would propel her toward international fame and a long publishing history connected with The New Yorker magazine. We will study a selection of Munro’s finest stories from a chronological perspective in order to better understand her evolving concerns and the development of her narrative techniques over five decades, culminating in her winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 as “master of the contemporary short story.” This trajectory will introduce us to a range of material about modern life, female experience, family intrigue, sexual deviance, erotic awakening. Munro’s stories are deceptively accessible, yet they are the product of deft structuring, compressed symbolism, and subtle narrative design. As W.H. New says, they “embed more than announce, reveal more than parade.” In reading Munro’s short stories we will also consider many of the features that distinguish modern short story writing. Each class will focus on a particular story, but we will also engage in a series of learning exercises designed to broaden the reading experience and to improve interpretive reading methods. We might spend a class looking at how Munro constructs a single paragraph. We might spend another class examining the revisions she made to a particular story and ask what effect those revisions have on our reading of the text. We might have a debate about the credibility of a particular narrator. Is she really who she says she is or is she faking it? The idea is to experience the stories from multiple perspectives and to entertain our reading in the process. Students are expected to read approximately four stories per week. The course will include one film screening (out of scheduled class time), based on an adaptation of one of Munro’s most celebrated stories. In this seminar-style course, weekly contributions to class discussion are essential.

• Lives of Girls and Women
• My Best Stories

Evaluation: seminar presentation (20%); discussion questions prepared in advance (10%); short essay (20%); final essay (30%); attendance and participation in every class (20%).

Format: seminar (presentations and discussion)

ENGL 733 - Victorian Novel

Experimental realism.

Professor Tabitha Sparks Winter 2025 Time: TBA

Description: Victorian novels have long been subject to a historical lens that positions them as the precursors and latent foils to the revisionist, psychologically self-aware modernist novel. This class will examine several Victorian novels that critics have struggled to adapt to a conventional realist and historicist teleology. Rather than treat them as aberrations to the canon, we will approach their experimental design and proto-modern meanings as facets of a Victorian literary history that the dominant Romantic-Victorian-Modern-Postmodern chronology has elided. In addition to the novels, this course will engage with the critical history of the novel to think about how “realism,” broadly conceived, has diluted the narratological sophistication of the Victorian novel.

Novels: (provisional)

• Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (1834)
• Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)
• W.M. Thackeray, Lovel the Widower (1860)
• Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm (1883)
• Margaret Harkness, A City Girl: A Realistic Story (1887)
• George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith, The Diary of a Nobody (1889)
• Henry James, The Beast in the Jungle (1903)

Critics : (list subject to grow)

• Virginia Woolf
• Georg Lukacs
• Mikhail Bakhtin
• Patricia Waugh
• George Levine
• Elaine Freedgood
• Audrey Jaffe

Evaluation: class participation (20%); discussion leading (15%); short essay (25%); long essay (40%)

Format: seminar (discussion)

ENGL 770 - Studies in American Literature

Roots of the modern short story: poe, hawthorne, melville.

Professor Peter Gibian Fall Term 2024 Time: TBA

Description: This course will offer intensive study of short prose fictions and critical essays by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville, as these foundational authors can be seen to work in dialogue with one another. We will explore aesthetic problems and cultural preoccupations crucial to mid-nineteenth-century America, studying at the same time how these authors break the ground for the emergence of the modern short story – anticipating the fundamental developments in form and theme that would become the bases for self-conscious, experimental short fiction produced in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

After a quick introductory review of some key works in contemporary short story theory, along with historical studies marking distinctions among the tale, the sketch, the novella and the emerging short story, we will devote about one month to each of the three authors—closely reading several of their lesser-known stories and essays while giving special attention to classic writings exploring a variety of fictional modes, such as: “The Philosophy of Composition,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Man of the Crowd,” “The Purloined Letter,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Oval Portrait,” “The Birth-mark,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” The Scarlet Letter , “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” “Benito Cereno,” and Billy Budd, Sailor .

Expected Student Preparation: Previous course work in American Literature before 1900, or in 19th-century British fiction, or permission of instructor.

Texts: (tentative; editions of collected short fiction TBA):

• Poe, The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe
• Hawthorne, Selected Tales and Sketches
• Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
• Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor, and Selected Tales or Great Short Works of Herman Melville

Evaluation: (tentative): participation in seminar discussions, 20%; series of one-page textual analyses, 20%; oral presentation, 20%; final research paper, 40%

ENGL 776 - Film Studies

Film thinks itself.

Professor Ned Schantz Fall 2024 Time: TBA

Description: This course will explore film theory through and against the tradition and current practice of meta-cinema, broadly construed. It is designed to appeal to students of widely ranging film backgrounds—certainly it can provide a substantial introduction to film studies for literary specialists; for more experienced cinema students, it can perhaps defamiliarize typical viewing habits and critical moves. Our themes will be loosely divided into three clusters—Part I (visibility), Part II (time and death) and Part III (production and performance)—though expect and be prepared to seek out connections throughout the course.

Possible films include: Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924), The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933), Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder 1950), Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones, 1953), La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962), 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963), Samuel Beckett’s Film (Alan Schneider, 1965), Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, Take One (William Greaves, 1968), Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973), Daughter Rite (Michelle Citron, 1980), Close Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990), After Life (Hirokazu Koreeda 1998), Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001), The Gleaners and I (Agnès Varda, 2000), Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Andersen, 2003), Caché (Haneke, 2005), Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012), The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012), The Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012), Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, 2012), Long Day’s Journey into Night (Bi Gan, 2017)

Evaluation: viewing journals 55%, participation 30%, presentation 15%

ENGL 778 - Studies in Visual Culture

The contemporary graphic novel.

Professor Sean Carney Winter 2025 Time: TBA

Description: How do you “read” a graphic novel? Does one “read” pictures, and if so, what does this mean? This course examines the unique formal and aesthetic qualities of the contemporary adult graphic novel, with particular emphasis on visual analysis. Considerable attention will therefore be paid to close reading and to the analysis of stylistic elements that distinguish comics as a unique artistic phenomenon. The course does not provide an historical survey of comics, nor does it examine popular genres such as superhero comics. The emphasis of the course leans towards recent graphic novels by single authors and narratives oriented to the adult reader. The texts will be chosen based not only on historical impact, verifiable influence, or general popularity with readers, but also with an eye to comics that experiment and expand the boundaries of the medium. There will be four thematic groupings: revisionist narratives within the mainstream, memoirs and confessionals, new journalism, and auteur comix.

Texts: writers and artists may include: Kate Beaton, Ebony Flowers, Thi Bui, Nick Drnaso, Ben Passmore, Sarah Glidden, Nora Krug, Adrian Tomine, Guy Delisle, David Mazzuchelli, Debbie Dreschler, James Sturm, Lynda Barry, Ivan Brunetti, Howard Cruse, Eddie Campbell, Art Spiegelman, Julie Doucet, Chester Brown, Daniel Clowes, Charles Burns, Alison Bechdel, David Collier, Ben Katchor, Marjane Satrapi, Rutu Modan, Jason Lutes, Jeff Smith, Joe Sacco, Carla Speed McNeil, David B., Chris Ware, Los Bros. Hernandez, Nick Abadzis, Rick Veitch, Phoebe Gloeckner, Harvey Pekar, R. Crumb, Jack Jackson, Craig Thompson, James Kochalka, Tom Gauld, Ed Piskor, Jeff Lemire, Jillian Tamaki, Mariko Tamaki, Gene Luen Yang, Faryl Dalrymple, Matt Kindt, Stephen Collins, Will Eisner, Alex Robinson, Scott McCloud

Format : seminar and discussion

Evaluation: seminar presentation with accompanying written component (20%); two 10-page essays (30% each); class participation (20%)

ENGL 785 - Studies in Theory

Bad Mathematics

Professor Amber Rose Johnson Winter 2025 Time: TBA

Description : This seminar explores how the language, concepts, and iconography of mathematics and physics operate in contemporary Black Studies. We will begin with Katherine McKittrick’s seminal essay, “Mathematics Black Life,” which articulates the ways in which Blackness was written into modernity, by way of colonialism and transoceanic chattel slavery, through numerical representation and quantification: weight, price, quantity, age, etc. We will rely heavily on the theoretical guidance of Sylvia Wynter, who explicates precisely how this “knowledge system that mathematizes the dysselected” came to be solidified through interlocking economic and juridical systems. Together we will consider how this “mathematization” continues to operate today through surveillance systems, digital data collection, and other capitalist strategies of documentation. Our first task is to understand how this same knowledge system produces both common understandings of our shared material world and also hierarchical social systems that justify dehumanization and violence. Contemporary Black artists, writers, and thinkers, however, are increasingly mis-using these disciplinary tools against their deadly tendencies. The second half of the course will turn our attention to contemporary Black cultural workers who differently deploy the language and symbols of mathematics and physics in their own work toward radical ends. Our theoretical guides for the second half of the course will include Denise Ferreira da Silva, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, and Michelle M. Wright, all of whom exemplify how core assumptions in math and physics discourses have been critically analyzed and repurposed by Black feminist thinkers. Together we will query how these artists and writers are pushing, stretching, and reformulating the language and operations of math and physics in their creative work in order to redefine Blackness and humanness. We will consider how these cultural producers provide different entry points to consider concepts including space, time, measurement, (e)valuation, and entanglement. The course will draw from a range of genres including poetry, film, visual art, live performance, novels, theory, and criticism. Examples include visual artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed’s 2021 exhibition, “Everyone Will be Saved Through Algebra (A Casual Mathematics),” Camonghne Felix’s experimental memoir Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscaluculation, and Kevin Jerome Everson’s short film, Partial Differential Equations (2020). Students will have the option of producing either a final paper or a creative project with an accompanying critical reflection.

Texts: (Tentative)

• Dear Science and Other Stories by Katherine McKittrick
• Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation by Camonghne Felix
• Physics of Blackness: Beyond Middle Passage Epistemology by Michelle M. Wright
• Toward a Global Idea of Race by Denise Ferreira da Silva
• Long Division by Kiese Laymon
• Visual and performance art by artists including Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Fields Harrington, Kevin Jerome Everson, and others
• Other essays and materials made available from MyCourses and/or McGill Library

Evaluation: seminar presentation (15%), midterm essay (25%), final paper or creative project with critical reflection (30%), active participation / weekly blog (30%)

Department and University Information

Department of english.

• Writer-in-Residence
• Land Acknowledgement