ANNOTATION – Poetry – Choose this if your self-chosen book is Poetry
Reading and Annotation: A couple of weeks ago you were assigned the Experiment of
visiting a bookstore and identifying a book of poetry that you wanted to read. By now,
you’ve gotten the book, read the book… Choose a longish poem, or a section of poems
that seem related (e.g. a linked series), and write an annotation of 2 pages or more
Discuss how the work is constructed, what is strongest, why the author might have made
the choices s/he did. Some things to think about:
 Title, first line, last line.
 Imagery (sensory details)
 Connections and implications of imagery
 Ideas, narrative, opinion – elements that are not imagery. Describe them.
 Speaker/persona – who is speaking? What do you learn about that person?
 Activities /events in the poem
 Setting of the poem
 Information about the world (history, facts, etc).
 Structure of poem
o Number & length of lines
o Stanzas
o Relation of sentences to lineation (end stopped?)
o length.
 Patterns of rhyme and repetition – formal or informal.
 SOUND of poem – read out loud.
 Layers of meaning; literal, metaphorical, allegorical, biographical, spiritual, etc.
 Bottom line: what do you take to be most significant in this poem(s)? What
strategies can you use in your own work?
You may focus on whatever you think is important, but ask questions and investigate the
structure of the poem/s and as many layers of meaning as you can. Annotation due
Friday, Feb. 17.
Finish with a regular MLA-style citation of the work. Use this format:
For a book with one author: Author. Title of Book. City: Publisher, date. Medium.
(Medium, in this case, is Print.)
Walther, Wiebke. Women in Islam: From Medieval to Modern Times. Princeton: Marcus
Wiener, 1993. Print.
For an anthology with an editor: Author. “Title of Chapter or Story or
Poem.” Publication. Editor. Publication information. Date. Medium.
Gray, Herman. “The Politics of Representation in Network Television.” Channeling
Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America. Ed. Darnell M. Hunt. New
York: Oxford UP, 2005. 155-74. Print.