Eleven Questions to Analyze Poetry and some must do’s
**Do Not Write on this! On your own paper, write a paragraph response (at least 5 sentences-remember the TEC method! using the topic/prompt given to you. The questions given are to help guide
you: you do not necessarily have to discuss every aspect of each question. Look on the back of this
handout if you need a refresher on TEC.
SPEAKER
Maybe Dats Your Problem Too
Jim Hall
All my pwoblems
who knows, maybe evwybody's pwoblems
is due to da fact, due to da awful twuth
dat I am SPIDERMAN.
I know. I know. All da dumb jokes:
No flies on you, ha ha,
and da ones about what do I do wit all
doze extwa legs in bed. Well, dat's funny yeah.
But you twy being
SPIDERMAN for a month or two. Go ahead.
You get doze cwazy calls fwom da
Gubbener askin you to twap some booglar who's
only twying to wip off color T.V. sets.
Now, what do I cawre about T.V. sets?
But I pull on da suit, da stinkin suit,
wit da sucker cups on da fingers,
and get my wopes and wittle bundle of
equipment and den I go flying like cwazy
acwoss da town fwom woof top to woof top.
Till der he is. Some poor dumb color T.V. slob
and I fall on him and we westle a widdle
until I get him all woped. So big deal.
You tink when you SPIDERMAN
der's sometin big going to happen to you.
Well, I tell you what. It don't happen dat way.
Nuttin happens. Gubbener calls, I go.
Bwing him to powice, Gubbener calls again,
like dat over and over.
I tink I twy sometin diffunt. I tink I twy
sometin excitin like wacing cawrs. Sometin to
make
my heart beat at a difwent wate.
But den you just can't quit being sometin like
SPIDERMAN.
You SPIDERMAN for life. Fowever. I can't even
buin my suit. It won't buin. It's fwame
wesistent.
So maybe dat's youwr pwoblem too, who knows.
Maybe dat's da whole pwoblem wif evwytin.
Nobody can buin der suits, dey all fwame
wesistent.
Who knows?
1. Who is the speaker?
The persona is the person who tells the story. Does every poem tell a story? Not necessarily. Try to stay
away from saying the poet is the speaker. What can you tell about the speaker’s age, gender, station in
life, opinions and feelings? What, if anything, does the poem reveal about the speaker’s character?
Who is the speaker?
What can you tell about the speaker’s age, gender, station in life, opinions and feelings?
What, if anything, does the poem reveal about the speaker’s character?
What precisely do we know about the speaker? How does he feel about himself? How do you
know?
AUDIENCE
Sonnets from the Portuguese, 18
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,
I ring out to the full brown length and say
'Take it.' My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more: it only may
Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first, but Love is justified,--Take it thou,---finding pure, from all those years,
The kiss my mother left here when she died.
2. To whom is the speaker speaking?
To the reader only? To someone else? If so, to whom, and what is the listener’s relationship to the
speaker?
TONE
I Felt a Funeral in my Brain
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 –
Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –
3. What is the poet’s tone?
What is the poet’s attitude towards his or her subject?
MOOD
Dream Boogie
Langston Hughes
Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?
Listen closely:
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a —
You think
It's a happy beat?
Listen to it closely:
Ain't you heard
something underneath
like a —
What did I say?
Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!
Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
Mop!
Y-e-a-h!
4. What is the mood or atmosphere of the poem?
How does the poem make the reader feel?
THEME
Roundeau Redouble
Wendy Cope
There are so many kinds of awful men One can't avoid them all. She often said
She'd never make the same mistake again;
She always made a new mistake instead.
The chinless type who made her feel ill-bred;
The practised charmer, less than charming when
He talked about the wife and kids and fled There are so many kinds of awful men.
The half-crazed hippy, deeply into Zen,
Whose cryptic homilies she came to dread;
The fervent youth who worshipped Tony Benn 'One can't avoid them all,'she often said.
The ageing banker, rich and overfed,
Who held forth on the dollar and then yen Though there were many more mistakes ahead,
She'd never make the same mistake again.
The budding poet, scribbling in his den
Odes not to her but to his pussy, Fred;
The drunk who fell asleep at nine or ten She always made a new mistake instead.
And so the gambler was at least unwed
And didn't preach or sneer or wield a pen
Or hoard his wealth or take the Scotch to bed.
She'd lived and learned and lived and learned but then
There are so many kinds.
5. What is the poet’s theme?
The theme is the main idea or message that the author is conveying. What is the poet trying to say about
life through his or her poem?
STRUCTURE
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
E. E. Cummings
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
who
a)s w(e loo)k
upnowgath
PPEGORHRASS
eringint(oaThe):l
eA
!p:
S
a
(r
rIvInG
.gRrEaPsPhOs)
to
rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly
,grasshopper;
6. Does the poem have a pattern? A form?
Does it have a pattern of ideas? Is it chronological? Does it move from the outside to the inside? Is it
external and move to internal or vice versa? Is it general moving towards specific? Specific to general?
What type of poem is this?
SOUND
Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Márgarét, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
7. Do patterns of rhyme or rhythm contribute to the meaning and effect of the poem? How does
rhyme function in the poem? Are there patterns of sound that help to convey meaning or create effects?
What does the meter contribute to the poem’s meaning?
STYLE
Paradelle for Susan
Billy Collins
I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love.
I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love.
Always perched on the thinnest, highest branch.
Always perched on the thinnest, highest branch.
Thinnest love, remember the quick branch.
Always nervous, I perched on your highest bird the.
It is time for me to cross the mountain.
It is time for me to cross the mountain.
And find another shore to darken with my pain.
And find another shore to darken with my pain.
Another pain for me to darken the mountain.
And find the time, cross my shore, to with it is to.
The weather warm, the handwriting familiar.
The weather warm, the handwriting familiar.
Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below.
Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below.
The familiar waters below my warm hand.
Into handwriting your weather flies you letter the from the.
I always cross the highest letter, the thinnest bird.
Below the waters of my warm familiar pain,
Another hand to remember your handwriting.
The weather perched for me on the shore.
Quick, your nervous branch flew from love.
Darken the mountain, time and find was my into it was with to to.
8. What is the poem’s style?
a. diction
b. figurative language
c. concrete imagery
d. allusions
e. symbols
f. sound imagery
OCCASION
‘Out, Out-‘
Robert Frost
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them “Supper.” At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap--He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand,
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all--Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart--He saw all spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off--The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!”
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then---the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little---less---nothing!---and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
9. What is the dramatic context of the poem?
Is there a reason or occasion for the poem? Is there any evidence of a setting, a time, a place, a season, or
situation?
SITUATION
This is Just to Say
William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
10. What happens during the poem?
Is there a conflict? Does an event occur? Is it in the past or the present? Is it external or internal? Why is
it important to the speaker or to a character in the poem? From what perspective does the speaker
describe events: as an omniscient narrator? as a participant? as an observer?
YOUR RESPONSE
Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
11. What was your initial response to the poem?
Did the poem speak to you? Touch you? Leave you cold? Confuse you? Anger you? Blow your mind? Cause
you to pick up your cell phone and call a friend?
More important, did your response change after reading the poem a second, third, or even fourth time?
MUST DO’s
Always notice
the title
punctuation
where one idea stops and another begins
who your poet is
TEC Writing: An Introduction
Why TEC?
—TEC stands for:
 THESIS
 EVIDENCE
 COMMENTARY
 The TEC model is the basic formula for writing an academic paper.
 We will use the TEC structure to organize our thoughts and opinions about the literature that we read this year.
What is a THESIS?
 A thesis is a statement that offers an opinion about a subject or something to prove about a subject.
o Subject + Opinion
o Subject + Something to Prove
 For example, here is a writing prompt about a well-known fairy tale:
o Describe the queen’s attitude about herself in the fairy tale “Snow White.”
o A THESIS statement will answer that prompt:
 In the fairy tale “Snow White,” the queen is vain.
o What is the subject of the thesis?
What is EVIDENCE?
 The evidence sentence offers an example that supports the THESIS statement.
 This evidence, or CONCRETE DETAIL, is a specific example from the text that proves the opinion offered by the THESIS.
 The evidence sentence contains a TRANSITION, CONTEXTUAL LEAD-IN, and CONCRETE DETAIL.
o Think of it as TLC!
 Here is an example of an evidence sentence that proves our thesis about the queen in Snow White:
o THESIS: In the fairy tale “Snow White,” the queen is vain.
o EVIDENCE: For example, when she wakes up every morning, the queen looks into her magic mirror and asks,
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
 Where is the transition in this sentence?
 Where is the CLI (contextual lead-in)?
 Where is the concrete detail?
What is COMMENTARY?
 A commentary sentence explains why the EVIDENCE supports the opinion given in the THESIS.
 It further explains the thinking behind your example.
 Here is an example:
o THESIS: In the fairy tale “Snow White,” the queen is vain.
o EVIDENCE: For example, when she wakes up every morning, the queen looks into her magic mirror and asks,
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
o COMMENTARY: Looking in the mirror daily and praising her own beauty is self-centered.
o COMMENTARY: The queen is more concerned about her own appearance than anything else in her life.
A few more notes:
 The ratio of evidence to commentary is often 1:2 (one evidence and 2 commentary sentences)
 In TEC Writing, never use:
o “I” “me” or “my”
o “you”
o “this shows” or “this proves”
TECCC?
 We will also add a conclusion sentence to finish out the body paragraph chunk:
o Sentence #1 –Thesis Statement (T)
o Sentence #2 – Evidence (E)
o Sentence #3 – Commentary (C)
o Sentence #4 – Commentary (C)
o Sentence#5 – Concluding Sentence (Summarize / Wrap up what you said)