Twenty Additional Question to ask When Teaching Poetry (3 in a 3 part series)

1.Look beyond the main noun-verb skeleton of the poem—at the explanations, additions, and ornaments. Ask what purpose do these serve?
2.Look at the words. Why are they given in this order? What would change if the order was different?
3.Look at the grammar, sentence structure, phrases and clauses. Why these kinds; why here? What would happen if some were changed or missing, or the order reversed?
4.Look at the rhythms. What are they doing? What would happen if they did something different?
5.Look at the literary devices—kind and number and order. Why this way? What would happen if this poem was missing, for example, the second metaphor?
6.What is implied by the “white space” between this sentence or these stanzas? Why here?
7.Is the organization linear (start-to-finish), radial (a cluster or phrases around a center), or recursive (doubling back on itself)?

8.Does the language change from concrete to abstract or vice versa?
9.Do not ask what the poet really meant when he used “these words”—he meant these words—ask rather “How would I be feeling if I said exactly this?”
10.As you read, ask questions about the speaker: where is he in time and space?
11.Over how long a period?
12.With what motivations?
13.Speaking in what tone of voice? Imagining life how?
14.How does the speaker resemble the author or differ from the author (if you know a bit about the author’s life).
15.What might have happened to the speaker before the poem?
16.Having determined the speaker, what kind of speaker / person are you, if you are speaking these words, in this way, and using these images? For example, who are you if you call yourself ‘nobody’ like Emily Dickenson’s speaker does in “I’m Nobody, Who are You?”
17.How does the poem see the past?
18.What words redden with shame? Which shine with morality?
19.In what communities does the poem station itself? What worldviews does it identify itself with?
20.Against what communities and worldviews does this poem contend?