SPOTTTS - Poetry Analysis Method
Name of poem
Poet
S
Subject (One or two words – what is this poem about?)
P Paraphrase (Each sentence in your own words.)
Before you begin thinking about meaning or tying to analyze the poem, don't over look the literal meaning of the poem.
One of the biggest problems that students often make in poetry analysis is jumping to conclusions before understanding
what is taking place in the poem. When you paraphrase a poem, write in your own words exactly what happens in the
poem. Look at the number of sentences in the poem your paraphrase should have exactly the same number. This
technique is especially helpful for poems written in the 17th and 19th centuries. Sometimes your teacher may allow you to
summarize what happens in the poem. Make sure that you understand the difference between a paraphrase and a
summary.
O Occasion (What is happening and where?)
T Title (A clear sentence or two discussing the significance of the title, if there is a title.)
Before you even think about reading the poetry or trying to analyze it, speculate on what you think the poem might be
about based upon the title. Often time authors conceal meaning in the title and give clues in the title. Jot down what you
think this poem will be about.
T Tone (How the writer feels about the subject. Three tone words)
T Theme (One clear sentence that tells what the speaker says about the subject.)
What is the poem saying about the human experience, motivation, or condition? What subject or subjects does the poem
address? What do you learn about those subjects? What idea does the poet want you take away with you concerning
these subjects? Remember that the theme of any work of literature is stated in a complete sentence.
S
Speaker (Who is narrating the poem?) (P.O.V.)
Paragraph: Write a paragraph explaining how the poet uses one poetic device to help him achieve meaning. (metaphor,
imagery, enjambment, caesura, meter (don’t make it flow!!!), allusion, organization (sonnet?), metonymy, euphony,
alliteration, assonance, apostrophe, blank verse, ballad, cacophony, are some you know.) Include in your paragraph the
poet and the title of the poem properly punctuated.
Elizabeth Bishop: “In the Waiting Room”
Gwendolyn Brooks: “We Real Cool”
Emily Dickinson: “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers”
Emily Dickinson: “I Felt a funeral in my brain”
John Donne: “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
Carolyn Forché: “The Colonel”
Robert Hayden: “Those Winter Sundays”
Andrew Marvell: “To His Coy Mistress”
John Crowe Ransom: “Bells for John Whiteside’s
Daughter”
Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Ozymandias”
Wallace Stevens: “Sunday Morning”
William Carlos Williams: “Danse Russe”
William Carlos Williams “Spring and All”
William Butler Yeats: “The Second Coming”
"To the Virgins, to make much of Time" by Robert Herrick
Ezra Pound "The Encounter"
William Carlos Williams "The Red Wheelbarrow"
Richard Wilbur "A Late Aubade”
Theodore Roetke “Elegy for Jane”
W.H. Auden The Unknown Citizen
William Wordsworth “There Was A Boy”
John Keats “Bright Star”
Long
Langston Hughes: “Let America Be America Again”
T.S. Eliot: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
"The Waste Land"