Writing Essays on Poetry
DR ROSE LUCAS
A Vocabulary for Poetry
 Repetition: Of words, images, ideas
 Alliteration: a repeated sound at the beginning of word
 Syntax: the ordering of words within a sentence
 Stanza: line division within a poem
 Line: differentiate from grammatical sentence
 Metre (rhythm): eg iambic pentameter
 Rhyme: sound repetitions at the end of words/lines
 Consonance: repeated syllable sounds, ‘slip,slap’
 Assonance: repeated vowel sounds ‘The Lotus blooms’
A Vocabulary for Poetry
 Enjambment: where the grammatical sense of a
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sentence/phrase runs on from one line to the next
Caesura: where a poetic line is end-stopped in the
middle
Stanza: any grouping of poetic lines
Quatrain: 4 lines within a sonnet
Octave: 8 lines within Petrarchan sonnet
Sestet: 6 lines
Rhyming couplet: conclusion of sonnet
Volta: the point of change within sonnet
Poetic Forms
 Sonnet: 14 lines
 Ballad: tells a story, links to music
 Lyric: short, subjective/personal, also linked to song
 Epic: long narrative, usually with heroic subject
matter
 Villanelle: cycling repetitions of lines
 Free Verse: no strict metrical or rhyme patterns
 Web site for literary terms:
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms.html
Quoting Poetry
 Always make sure you quote from the poem you are
writing about – succinctly and in a targeted way.
 Retain original punctuation, and indicate line breaks
with a forward /slash
 You will need to cite the poem in your Bibliography
in Primary References :
 T.S. Eliot, The Complete Poems. London: Faber and
Faber, 1922.
Quoting Poetry
 You don’t need to footnote on subsequent occasions,
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and you don’t need to indicate line numbers.
Poem titles are in single quote marks, ‘The Waste
Land.’
Titles of books are in italics: Selected Poems of
T.S.Eliot.
Any quotations from a poem need to be in single
quote marks, ‘April is the cruellest month.’
If you decide to leave anything out of a quote,
indicate this with ellipses…
Planning Essay 1
 Read the poems and make selection of 2: Make
decision about topic and about poems to be used.
 Give yourself plenty of time! Essays involve an
evolution of critical and creative thinking, and can’t be
‘crammed’ with any great success. See the reading /
thinking / writing / re-writing as part of a process – and
a craft in itself.
Planning the Essay
 Spend time undertaking close reading of selected poems: make
notes, find an overview understanding.
 ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT A CLOSE READING INVOLVES A
CAREFUL CONSIDERATION OF HOW THE POEM’S FORMAL
ELEMENTS (RHYME, RHYTHM, LAYOUT, LINE LENGTHS ETC)
INTERACT WITH ITS IMAGES, METAPHORS, IDEAS . FROM THIS
INTERACTION, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DERIVE YOUR
INTERPRETATION OF THE POEM’S ‘MEANING/S’.
Planning the Essay
 Engage closely with the topic. What exactly is it asking? How will
you address it in relation to your chosen poems?
 Devise an essay plan (one page, dot points) in response to the
above (i.e. the topic, close reading of poems, secondary
reading). An essay needs to have:
All Essays Need…
 An Introduction: which gives an overview of your response to the
topic (also called the argument, the thesis) in relation to the poems;
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A series of key points: which explicate that argument, and which
usually correspond to the sequence of paragraphs;
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A Conclusion: which pulls together the threads of your discussion
and directly mirrors the intro. No new material should be put into a
conclusion.
 A Bibliography
Bibliographies
 A Bibliography always needs a separate page at the
end of your essay.
 For Essay 1, you only need a Primary Sources section
of a Bibliography: where did the poems come from
(eg Leonard). Essay 2 will need both Primary and
Secondary Sources in your Bibliography.
 Name of author, title of book in italics. Place of
publication: Publishing house, date of publication.
 Leonard, John (Ed.), Seven Centuries of Poetry in
English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Writing the Essay
 Write a first draft. Allow this to ‘sit’ for a day or two, then
return and edit.
 Read, revise, and always check back to the key criteria of
topic and poems. Is it relevant to the topic? Have your
shown how you derived your ideas from the poems? Have
you used secondary sources to support your argument (not
to make the argument for you)? (This is relevant for essay 2
only).
 Do final draft. Read aloud (to someone else, if you can find
a sympathetic audience!)
The Research Essay
 The second essay will ask you to address a more
conceptual topic across a range of poems. While you
will still need to demonstrate close reading skills of
your poetic examples, you will need to do this in the
context of a broader set of ideas and you will also
need to read and use secondary sources – ie critics
writing about these poems/poet and/or about the
overarching topic.
 All secondary sources consulted will need to be
included in your Bibliography.
Quoting secondary sources
 Do some general reading as per suggested lists. Make
notes as you go, taking exact quotations and
publishing info.
 Structure your essay as per Essay 1, but now also
including the additional ideas of critics. Choose some
relevant quotations.
 Be sure you don’t get swamped by others’ ideas;
make sure that the argument you develop in your
essay is your own voice that has evolved from your
reading of the poems, your use of critics’ ideas and
your engagement with the topic.
Quoting Secondary Sources
 When you do quote secondary sources, be sure you
indicate exactly what comes from the critic,
preferably by quoting something specific from them.
Don’t just put a reference at the end of a para; you
must be explicit.
 Choose a referencing style for referring to secondary
sources and bibliography. Harvard style (in-text):
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/referenci
ng_guides/harvardStyleGuide.pdf
Quoting Secondary Sources
 However, as long as you are internally consistent,
you are free to use a different style (e.g. footnotes
instead of in-text):
http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/onlib/refbib.html
 VU referencing page:
http://www.vu.edu.au/library/referencingcopyright/referencing-guides
General Tips
 Don’t get too distracted by the background context of
the poet or historical period. Some information
around this can of course be useful: Plath was
suicidal; Owen was writing during WWI etc.
However, this should be a springboard only for you
to discuss and analyse the poem – this is especially
true for Essay 1 and for your informal presentations.
We need readings of the poems, not biographies of
poets.
General Tips
 Base your analysis of a poem on direct and relevant
quotation (don’t ‘summarise’)
 Quote judiciously from secondary sources and show
how relevant to your argument. Always indicate
exactly what words and/or ideas you are deriving
from a critic. Footnote or in-text reference.
 Don’t just describe what you see in a poem; base
your discussion around an analysis (form and
content) of the poem in explicit relation to
the ideas posed by the topic.
General Tips
 Reference all secondary material
 Check for grammatical structure and the clarity of
written expression.
 Essays should be 1.5 spaced, on one side of page
only; page numbers marked; adequate margins left
for comments.
 Titles of poems should be in quote marks
(‘Daffodils,’) titles of books should be italicized
(Poems of William Wordsworth).
General Tips
 All essays should always be drafted at least once.
Just like a poem, the essay form is a craft and will
evolve and improve through a drafting process.
 Writing is a craft to learn and ideas may begin in the
abstract, but they will take shape through writing as
a communicative method.