Understand those confusing poems

When you get in high school, it is probably mandatory that you enroll in literature classes, right? And of course, as different classes have their own difficulties, many people are going to struggle in this class, which can be explained by the fact that in literature we are exploring a lot of things, like reading and analyzing long stories as well as writing different essays. And in these numerous skills of literature, there is one thing that a lot of people are going to struggle from, and that is to be able to understand poems. Initially, when you think of poems, you may associate them with very short works that have at most a few hundred words. But honestly, it is much more complicated than that - remember, each and every word in a poem is carefully selected by its author, meaning that the way to approach poetry isn’t going to be too straightforward. Sometimes, the poems will not give us specific settings and characters for us to analyze, and at other times, there are no stakeholders in the poems themselves, but rather, just lines of feelings and emotions and something like that - and as students, we are going to have to decode that. Honestly, that can be pretty traumatizing, especially when one, it is completely different from stories that we have been exposed to for very long; and two, there isn’t really a formula when it comes to analyzing poems, due to the fact that different poets have different styles of constructing their work. As a person who has been exposed to a lot of poetry and takes great interest in them, I would like to share some tips that you can use in order to understand these confusing poems. And before we start this, I would like to restate that these are only my personal tips that work for me, so it is completely fine if it doesn’t work for you. But again, I hope that your academic journey is going to be smooth and successful, so hopefully the things that I am going to share down below are going to, hopefully, help you with this thing.

The first thing for you all to bear in mind is that a poem can have different interpretations - sometimes this is because we are not the authors themselves so we can’t really understand their points of view, and sometimes this is actually due to the intentions of the authors themselves! Because of this, it is completely fine if your interpretation is different from others - typically, when it comes to analyzing essays, teachers will not force students to follow a certain mold or something, but let the creativity of students thrive. Because of this, never be worried if you understand a poem differently from another person’s, since it is completely fine to look at it your way!

So how to start analyzing a poem? The first thing is to read it, right? Hopefully, you have had a sense of what is going on with the literary work, but if nothing is making sense to you, start by looking for the general theme being conveyed, and note the presence of this particular theme throughout the poem. For example, when you find a consistent theme of family here, watch out for symbolism - are there any symbols that can tie back to the idea of family and connection? Also, look out for literary devices - they are excellent ways that the poet can use to reveal the theme! A typical poem should be able to create a picture of at least something, so whereas you don’t have to understand things straight away, try to decode this big picture that the author is envisioning! Watch out for these connections, and see the flow of the poem, of how the author has weaved in different details in order to achieve the theme!

Another bonus tip: feel free to read the poem out loud! Sometimes, realization comes from our ears’ ability to feel the words being said and the connections being conveyed! Another fun thing that comes from reading a poem out loud is that we can actually be able to feel the tone being conveyed through the poem. You may not realize this from just reading the poem in your mind, but when you start to read the literary work out loud and really immerse yourself in the work, chances are, you will be able to express what tone is the poem being “spoken in”. And with that being recognized, it will be much easier for you to be able to comprehend the poem and start the analysis part!

On a last note, it is completely fine if you can not understand a poem straight away! Remember the thing that is special about poems - poems are to be felt and thought of, compared to books, where it is more about reading and understanding the different events. Trust me, practice this skill, and it will become easier over time!