ENG 122 / Poetry
Literary Analysis: Poetry: Lyric/Narrative
This week, you’ve learned about two poetry types, lyric and narrative, and read a number of
poems from each category.
For this assignment, you will:
Choose one lyric OR one narrative poem (just one!) from among the 8 poems listed on
this week’s Schedule (Week Nine).
Write a 750 – 1,000 word (750 words minimum) analysis (details below!)
Note: You analysis must be at least 750 words, in order to earn points for this
assignment. Fewer than 750 words will equal a zero (0) for this assignment.
You must include at least 1 direct quote from the poem to support your discussion.
No Works Cited is needed for this assignment, but you must properly cite any lines you
use from the poem. Review proper MLA formatting for citing lines from poetry!
Do not do “outside” research! This is not a research paper. You will use your
knowledge of the elements below, which you have learned about in class, to analyze the
poem that you have chosen.
1. Write a well-developed 750-to-1,000 word (750 word minimum) analysis that discusses
all of the items below for the poem that you chose:
Persona
o Who (or what) is the “speaker” in the poem? How do you know?
Theme
o For the lyric poem: What is the subject of the poem? What are the speaker’s feelings
about the poem’s subject – how do you know (which specific details from the poem
suggest this)? What specific details does the speaker use to make the speaker’s
emotions or opinions come across – seem “real”?
o For the narrative poem: What is the “story” that the speaker is trying to get across?
Is the author’s method of narrative poetry effect for this? Why or why not?
Tone
o What is the tone of each poem? Is there any irony in the poem (irony, verbal irony,
sarcasm, dramatic irony, cosmic irony) – and, if so, what is it?
Diction & Structure
o What type of diction is used?
o Is allusion used? If so, to what does allusion refer?
o Comment on the poem’s structure –does it add to the poem’s overall effect and/or
support the poem’s theme? Why or why not?
Denotation/Connotation
o Do examples of denotation exist in the poem? If so, what are they?
o Do examples of connotation exist in the poem? If so, what are they?
(NOTE: every poem uses either denotative or connotative language – or both!)
Your thoughts...
o Reflect on your own reaction to this poem – what impact does this poem have on
you...?
2. Post your analysis in the Discussions area in Canvas.
**NOTE: You are not required to respond to a classmate, as this is an assignment, not a
Discussion post. However, I do encourage you to read/respond to one another’s work, if you
wish to do so!**
The Clock
by Daniel Tobin, 1999
Bored with plastic armies,
he climbs onto the parlor loveseat
and watches the wide expression of the clock.
He doesn't know what time is,
doesn't know how in no time
those numbers will fill his days
the way water fills a bath
into which an exhausted man
lowers himself, not wanting to rise.
un and moon gaze back at him
from the glaze of the silver frame,
each with a human face, his own face mirrored there.
Look closer, his mother says,
and you can see the small hand move.
And he leans closer now, steadied
in her arms, the hand a winded runner
lapped on the track. That's hours,
she says, the big hand's minutes, the quick,
seconds. And the boy fingers the pivot
anchoring them, his touch
stirs with the machine.
I'm older now, and now, and now. The gears
starts to tick through every room of that house.
Tobin, Daniel. “The Clock.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Portable Ed, edited by Alison Booth, J. Paul
Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays, Norton, 2006, 427-428.
Perhaps the World Ends Here
by Joy Harjo, 1951
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it
will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees
under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it,
we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us
at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to
celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the
last sweet bite.
Harjo, Joy. “The Woman Who Fell From the Sky,” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, n.d.,
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49622/perhaps-the-world-ends-here. Accessed
7 Aug. 2018
Lapointe/English
Ground Swell
by Mark Jarman
Is nothing real but when I was fifteen,
Going on sixteen, like a corny song?
I see myself so clearly then, and painfully-Knees bleeding through my usher's uniform
Behind the candy counter in the theater
After a morning's surfing; paddling frantically
To top the brisk outsiders coming to wreck me,
Trundle me clumsily along the beach floor's
Gravel and sand; my knees aching with salt.
Is that all I have to write about?
You write about the life that's vividest.
And if that is your own, that is your subject.
And if the years before and after sixteen
Are colorless as salt and taste like sand-Return to those remembered chilly mornings,
The light spreading like a great skin on the water,
And the blue water scalloped with wind-ridges,
And--what was it exactly?--that slow waiting
When, to invigorate yourself, you peed
Inside your bathing suit and felt the warmth
Crawl all around your hips and thighs,
And the first set rolled in and the water level
Rose in expectancy, and the sun struck
The water surface like a brassy palm,
Flat and gonglike, and the wave face formed.
Yes. But that was a summer so removed
In time, so specially peculiar to my life,
Why would I want to write about it again?
There was a day or two when, paddling out,
An older boy who had just graduated
And grown a great blonde moustache, like a walrus,
(continued)
(continued)
Lapointe/English
Skimmed past me like a smooth machine on the water,
And said my name. I was so much younger,
To be identified by one like him-The easy deference of a kind of god
Who also went to church where I did--made me
Reconsider my worth. I had been noticed.
He soon was a small figure crossing waves,
The shawling crest surrounding him with spray,
Whiter than gull feathers. He had said my name
Without scorn, just with a bit of surprise
To notice me among those trying the big waves
Of the morning break. His name is carved now
On the black wall in Washington, the frozen wave
That grievers cross to find a name or names.
I knew him as I say I knew him, then,
Which wasn't very well. My father preached
His funeral. He came home in a bag
That may have mixed in pieces of his squad.
Yes, I can write about a lot of things
Besides the summer that I turned sixteen.
But that's my ground swell. I must start
Where things began to happen and I knew it.
ENG 122 / Poetry
Literary Analysis: Poetry: Lyric/Narrative
This week, you’ve learned about two poetry types, lyric and narrative, and read a number of
poems from each category.
For this assignment, you will:
Choose one lyric OR one narrative poem (just one!) from among the 8 poems listed on
this week’s Schedule (Week Nine).
Write a 750 – 1,000 word (750 words minimum) analysis (details below!)
Note: You analysis must be at least 750 words, in order to earn points for this
assignment. Fewer than 750 words will equal a zero (0) for this assignment.
You must include at least 1 direct quote from the poem to support your discussion.
No Works Cited is needed for this assignment, but you must properly cite any lines you
use from the poem. Review proper MLA formatting for citing lines from poetry!
Do not do “outside” research! This is not a research paper. You will use your
knowledge of the elements below, which you have learned about in class, to analyze the
poem that you have chosen.
1. Write a well-developed 750-to-1,000 word (750 word minimum) analysis that discusses
all of the items below for the poem that you chose:
Persona
o Who (or what) is the “speaker” in the poem? How do you know?
Theme
o For the lyric poem: What is the subject of the poem? What are the speaker’s feelings
about the poem’s subject – how do you know (which specific details from the poem
suggest this)? What specific details does the speaker use to make the speaker’s
emotions or opinions come across – seem “real”?
o For the narrative poem: What is the “story” that the speaker is trying to get across?
Is the author’s method of narrative poetry effect for this? Why or why not?
Tone
o What is the tone of each poem? Is there any irony in the poem (irony, verbal irony,
sarcasm, dramatic irony, cosmic irony) – and, if so, what is it?
Diction & Structure
o What type of diction is used?
o Is allusion used? If so, to what does allusion refer?
o Comment on the poem’s structure –does it add to the poem’s overall effect and/or
support the poem’s theme? Why or why not?
Denotation/Connotation
o Do examples of denotation exist in the poem? If so, what are they?
o Do examples of connotation exist in the poem? If so, what are they?
(NOTE: every poem uses either denotative or connotative language – or both!)
Your thoughts...
o Reflect on your own reaction to this poem – what impact does this poem have on
you...?
2. Post your analysis in the Discussions area in Canvas.
**NOTE: You are not required to respond to a classmate, as this is an assignment, not a
Discussion post. However, I do encourage you to read/respond to one another’s work, if you
wish to do so!**
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