how to read a poem

How to Read A Poem by James Winn
1. Read the poem out loud. Ignore problems of meaning for now; listen to the sounds of the words. Notice the rhyme scheme; identify the meter; look for alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia. What patters of recurrence does the poem display? What is its form?

2. Now ignore form and read the poem as if it were prose. Sort out the syntax. Diagram sentences if you must. Restore oddly ordered words to more normal prose order. Who is the speaker? Whom is he addressing? Can you paraphrase his meaning? What ambiguities of diction or grammar make such a paraphrase difficult? Look up any words or names whose meaning you don’t know.

3. Now focus on poetic kinds of meaning. What are the most important similes and metaphors in the poem? Do they fit together? How many kinds of meaning do they have? What is tone of the poem? Is it tender, ironic, serious, sneaky? Are the meanings you are now discovering in contrast with those available from the prose paraphrase you made in step 2?

4. Now read the poem aloud again, trying to notice as many aspects of its construction as you can at once. Does the form affect the meaning? Are rhyming words important words? Do separate lines contain separate thoughts? How does the whole construct work? Does it affect you?