Understanding Poetry

Many Fan Story reviewers are reluctant to respond to poetry, fearing they lack the specialized knowledge to make useful comments. Many readers in general shy away from even reading poetry because they feel out of their element. This is an overview that will give you the tools you need to write a knowledgeable review and also help you enjoy and appreciate what you read more. It will also provide poets with information that can help them expand the types of poetry they compose.

We will read and discuss poets as diverse as Shakespeare and Sylvia Plath, Poe and Dylan Thomas, Dickinson and Langston Hughes, Frost and cummings to better understand just what makes a poem a poem, and what makes a poem a great poem.

How does poetry differ from prose, how does formal rhymed and metered poetry differ from free verse, and what do they have in common? Why is the sound of words so important? What do we mean when we say the poet paints a picture with words?
What exactly are metaphors, similes, personification, alliteration and other poetic devices?

Week One: What distinguishes poetry from prose?
What is economy of language? Why does poetry focus just as much on the sound of words as their meaning?
What is the importance of concrete imagery with strong appeal to the senses as the poet reports what he observes? How important is the appeal to emotion? Each week assignments will include reading sample poems and critiquing them based on the issues discussed that week.

Week Two: This week will be devoted to formal poetry, poetry that follows set patterns of meter and rhyme. What exactly is meter and why is it so much more than syllable counting? What is a rhyme scheme and what makes for good rhyming as opposed to forced rhyming and predictable rhyming?
What are the rules for all those forms like sonnets, triolets, rondeaus, quatrains?

Week Three: This week will focus on figurative language, poetic devices. What are metaphors, similes, personification, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, alliteration, consonance, assonance?
How are these poetic devices used in all poetry, both formal poetry and free verse? How are they integral to distinguishing free verse from prose?

Week Four: This week's topic will be how do we take all this information to write an informed review? How does one critique a poem beyond just saying "I like it"? How can you use your new found knowledge to discover more in a poem than you ever realized was there, and how do you use it to write a thoughtful analysis?


Instructor: Brooke Baldwin

About The Instructor: Brooke Baldwin received her education from Smith and her M.A. from Yale, she focused on essay writing. Her master's degree is in American Studies, which includes American literature. While a graduate student, she served as a teaching assistant in several writing-intensive sections of American Studies classes. For over twenty years she taught writing at the middle and high school level.

As a grad student, she had several articles published in academic journals. She has published articles and pamphlets about the anti-apartheid movement. She joined Fan Story as adewpearl in August, 2008 and became the site's second ranked poet that year. In 2009 she became poet of the year.