Narrowing your topic for poetry is much like narrowing it for short fiction. In this case, however, you will talk about other elements much more. As I alluded to in the previous assignment, smaller elements make up the larger elements. You want to focus on words individually by using denotation, connotation, imagery, jargon, diction, etc. Then you will work your way out to the metaphors and symbols and themes within the poem.
However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t narrow down to one of these smaller elements. For instance, you could focus on connotation. The poet could do a lot of interesting stuff with connotation in the poem you choose. Take the poem “Latin Night at the Pawn Shop” on page 644. Many of the words have connotative meanings that have to do with value or worth: golden, silver, price, ticket, gleaming. These connotative meanings add a somewhat hidden meaning to the poem.
Anyway, focus on your narrowed topic for these 250 words, just like with short fiction. Try not to mention any other elements for this assignment even though they will be a big part of your essay as well. Save that for your essay. This is just for establishing your controlling idea.
In the case of poetry, the controlling idea is especially important. It will focus all of the different analysis you do for the poem, and, along with the narrowed topic, it will focus on a particular part of the poem. Don’t try to analyze your entire poem. Most students use their analysis to tell me what the poem means. That is not what I am looking for. You should figure out what it means if you can, but what I am looking for is how the poem works, all of the different aspects of the poem that expand the meaning of it. Don’t put the burden of meaning on yourself or the poem.
Most poems don’t have a definite meaning, so when you try to give a poem one, you diminish the poem and ultimately take away a lot of its depth. Focus on how it sounds, the images, the different metaphors, how different effects of the poem are achieved.
Again, I am not interested in what you think the poem means. You need to focus on the elements that are used and show the ways the poem works. Most scholars don’t agree on what a poem means. And even if they do, and you feel confident with your interpretation, that is not what analysis is for. It is for opening the poem up and showing all of the different ways the poem plays with meaning. You are a detective, but I don’t want you to close the case. I want you to expand the case and show if for the mystery that it is. To use a metaphor, poems are unsolvable cases, and that is the best part about them.
Give me 250 words about your narrowed topic. Those 250 words should lead you to some kind of idea of your main idea. After providing the 250 words, try to put them into one elegant statement, a tentative thesis statement.
