How to read a poem

How to Read A (Lyric) Poem: A Method

I recommend beginning reading poetry with a four-step process. (This process is especially tailored to lyric poetry, rather than narrative or dramatic poetry, which more easily lend themselves to a somewhat different sort of engagement.) I hope that poets and experienced poetry readers will find that what I am describing aligns with their own experience. As one gets more accustomed to reading poetry, these steps will begin to blur together and will feel less and less like a step-wise process.

Hear.     

The first step is to read the poem aloud without working to “make sense” of it. Simply allow yourself to hear the words and experience without evaluation whatever associations, meanings, or feelings emerge in that process.

When reading the poem aloud, do not assume that the end of a line requires a stop. Instead, let the punctuation guide your pauses. If there is a full-stop at the end of the line, then observe it. If there isn’t one, keep reading through to the next line without a break. Give a slightly shorter pause at commas. Give semi-colons, colons, and question marks essentially the same time you do a full-stop. Don’t over exaggerate the vocal inflection of question marks and exclamation marks. At this point, if you encounter a word you don’t know, just keep going. The point here is to hear the full poem like one would hear a piece of music. Don’t treat it as a puzzle to be solved, but music to be enjoyed. If you never move beyond this first step, that’s entirely okay.

You are allowed to enjoy a poem at the level of sound without digging deeper. But, if you do wish to dig deeper, you can often discover more to appreciate and enjoy.

Question.     

This first step is often called “reading with the grain.” If you can imagine the grain in a piece of wood – passing your hand over it in one direction results in a free-flowing, smooth experience. Reversing the direction, going against the grain, produces a rough sensation and maybe even a splinter. After reading a poem with the grain, then read it again against the grain. By that I mean, ask questions as you are reading. Note points of interest. Note confusing bits and unfamiliar vocabulary. Don’t bother looking anything up, not just yet. Read through the full poem again with the intention of coming to terms with it, or negotiating possible meanings, messages, and aims. It helps at this point to have a paper copy of the text and a pencil in hand to mark it up. Although it might be anathema to some of you, I would urge you to write in your books. As someone who spent the past three years digging through old, rare books, I can tell you the marginalia left by previous owners of a book are often the most interesting things about old books.

Analyze.     

The first reading is for hearing; the second reading is for questioning; the third is for analyzing. Analysis is the process of taking something apart to see how it works. Dissect the poem on your laboratory table and label all of its internal organs. I recommend starting with form and working down to aims and meanings (recognizing that the two cannot ultimately be divided; nevertheless the distinction can be useful). In other words, start with the more obvious and measurable and work your way down to the less obvious and less measurable.

Identify whether the poem follows a fixed form like a sonnet. If it does, you will have some clues as to how poems of that kind usually operate and sometimes even what kind of content they usually concern. Identify the rhythmic patterns. Is it metrical or free – in other words, does it follow regularly repeating rhythmic units, or are the rhythms less fixed. Does it rhyme? If so, what is the rhyme scheme? Look for alliteration in the lines. Identify figures of speech, like metaphors and personification.

To analyze content, start with who is speaking, what that speaker seems to be doing, and the intended audience. If possible, identify who you think the speaking voice of the poem is or if, indeed, there is more than one. Summarize what the speaker of the poem is doing in the poem. See if you can guess what the speaker of the poem thinks you the reader will know, believe, think, or accept.

At this point, widen the scope of your analysis to things that take you beyond the text of the poem. Look up unfamiliar words and references. Identify any allusions (quotations from, references to, or other borrowings from other works) you recognize or think you recognize (the more you read the more you will be able to notice allusions). Look for what you can learn about the time in which the poem was written and the writer’s life. Consider if any of this informs how you understand parts of the poem.

Hear again.

Finally, after questioning and analyzing the poem, read it a fourth time, aloud again, and straight through without stopping or questioning. When taking something apart in order to try to figure out how it works, one should then put the parts back together again. All of the questioning and analyzing you have done will allow you to hear the poem anew. Perhaps it will sound different. Perhaps the correspondence of sound and sense will be clearer.

(Taken from a talk on poetry given by Drew Nathaniel Keane in the Art of Advent series at St. John’s Church in Savannah, Dec. 8 2022)