How to respond to poetry

The word poem comes from the Greek verb ‘poiein’ which means ‘to make or create.’

Key learning points

In a poem, a writer uses language, form and structure to present an idea in a new way; the words on the page become a way to communicate between the poet’s mind and the reader's.

When reading poetry a reader will interpret what it means to them. Everyone's response is different.

Responding to poetry means writing your own personal thoughts and feelings about a poem.

The famous poet and playwright TS Eliot once wrote that ‘genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood’.

This makes a lot of sense.

A poem is like a face: you can usually tell what sort of emotion an individual is feeling by their facial expression. What you don’t know, is why they are feeling this way or what has caused their emotion.

This is what happens when you read a poem. The language of the poem and its form communicate the ideas and the emotions in the poem. For the reader to understand these ideas fully they need to ask why the poet wrote the poem.

Identify how it makes you feel, first. Read the poem several times to work out what it is communicating.

Some of the options available to poets to convey meaning in their poem are:

• the shape of the poem on the page
• the words used
• metaphors and imagery
• the story of the poem
• the characters in the poem

You need to explore the words to help you understand the poet’s intention and feelings.

• What happens?
• Who is in the poem?
• Who is speaking?
• Who are they speaking to?
• When is this poem ‘happening’?
• Where are they?
• What is this poem trying to tell me about life?

You can work out the rhyme scheme of a poem by giving each line that rhymes the same letter of the alphabet. The letters change when the rhyme pattern changes. Look at the example below:

The merry band of men (A)
Went back to town again (A)
To find a place to eat (B)
More vegetables and meat (B)

• ‘men’ and ‘again’ rhyme = AA
• ‘eat’ and ‘meat’ rhyme = BB
• This means the rhyme scheme is AABB

A poet decides on a structure and a form for their poem.

• Structure – How the ‘story’ or narrative of the poem unfolds on the page: what happens, when, to whom, how, and why.
• Form – The shape of the poem on the page: its length, rhyme, rhythm, lines, stanzas, and punctuation.

Examples of form in poetry:

• Sonnets are 14 line poems traditionally written about an aspect of love. They have a regular rhyme scheme and are often written in iambic pentameter. Find out more about sonnets.
• Ballads are long poems narrating a story in stanzas. They tend to have stanzas of four lines called quatrains and a simple rhyme scheme of ABAB.
  Find out more about ballads.
• Limericks are five line poems with the rhyme scheme AABBA. They tend to be comic and feature a description of a person.
  Find out more about limericks.

Specific words or lines in a poem will create an emotional response from the reader. These key words, lines or quotations can be used when writing about a poem to explain your response to it. Using a quotation correctly can show a good level of understanding of the poem

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Embed quotations and explain them using openers such as:

• In the…
  In the line, ‘Fluttering and dancing in the breeze,’ the poet uses personification, to give the reader a sense of the daffodils moving around with happiness.
• By using the…
  By using the word ‘wandered’ in both the title and within the poem, the poet highlights the emotion of drifting aimlessly and experiencing different sights.

Embedding a quotation is a skill that helps you write about poetry in a sophisticated way.

A poet has a toolkit of methods to choose from when writing a poem.

It is important to explore the use of these methods in the context of the poem when responding to poetry.

Look at these examples:

• The poet uses onomatopoeia create the sound of a specific word.
• The use of enjambment creates a feeling of the speaker’s words tumbling out.
• The poet employs sibilance to emulate the sound of hushing or hissing.
• The use of caesura creates a sense of a sudden pause in the speaker’s thoughts.