Analysing Poetry

1. Analysing Poetry Some hints & tips

2. Don’t feature spot! • If you notice a caesura, ask yourself why the poet used that technique. • If the poet uses enjambment try to explain the reason for using it. • If the poet is using rhyme what effect does it create? • If a word is repeated then the poet chose to repeat it rather than use a synonym.

3. Caesura: a pause within a line of verse. • He has a job to do. Solutions slop in traysbeneath his hands which did not tremble thenthough seem to now. Rural England. Home again

4. Enjambment: a line of poetry which is not end-stopped, i.e. the sentence continues into the next line. • He has a job to do. Solutions slop in traysbeneath his hands which did not tremble thenthough seem to now.

5. Repetition of a word for effect She keeps on running, you know, after the shutter of the camera clicks. She's running to us. For how can she know, her feet beating a path on another continent? How can she know what we really are? From the distance, we look so terribly human.

6. War Photographer In his darkroom he is finally alonewith spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.The only light is red and softly glows,as though this were a church and hea priest preparing to intone a Mass.Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.He has a job to do. Solutions slop in traysbeneath his hands which did not tremble thenthough seem to now. Rural England. Home againto ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,to fields which don't explode beneath the feetof running children in a nightmare heat.

7. War Photographer 11In his darkroom he is finally alone11/12with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.10The only light is red and softly glows,8as though this were a church and he10a priest preparing to intone a Mass.10Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.12He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays10beneath his hands which did not tremble then11though seem to now. Rural England. Home again12to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,10to fields which don't explode beneath the feet10of running children in a nightmare heat.

8. War Photographer In his darkroom he is finally alonewith spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.The only light is red and softly glows,as though this were a church and hea priest preparing to intone a Mass.Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.He has a job to do. Solutions slop in traysbeneath his hands which did not tremble thenthough seem to now. Rural England. Home againto ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,to fields which don't explode beneath the feetof running children in a nightmare heat.

9. War Photographer In his darkroom he is finally alonewith spools of suffering set out in ordered rows. AThe only light is red and softly glows, Aas though this were a church and hea priest preparing to intone a Mass. BBelfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass. BHe has a job to do. Solutions slop in traysbeneath his hands which did not tremble then Cthough seem to now. Rural England. Home again Cto ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,to fields which don't explode beneath the feet Dof running children in a nightmare heat. D

10. Pronouns shift the perspective She keeps on running, you know, after the shutter of the camera clicks. She's running to us. For how can she know, her feet beating a path on another continent? How can she know what we really are? From the distance, we look so terribly human.

11. Perspective can refer to many aspects of a poem: • From whose point of view the poem is written • To whom the poem is addressed • Time