Explication

Explication

Explication is a detailed explanation of the meaning of something, in this case, a poem. I am going to give you the links to several published poems and ask you to pick one and write a detailed explication of it. Some of them are short poems, and some are longer, but just because a poem is short does not mean it is easier to explicate, so choose carefully.

Enter the explication as your entry for the contest.

Punctuation and spelling and proper grammar count in your explication.

Below the links, I am posting a guide to help you with your explication, if you need it.

A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg: www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15306

The Possessive by Sharon Olds: www.english.uga.edu/~dhart/The_Possessive.html

The Snail by William Cowper: www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0011a&L=conch-l&F=&S=&P=9566

Truth by Gwendolyn Brooks:  furbox.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=512&sid=7e7d3019c9302cc2d661cff08998ec37

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden: www.abluenature.com/poetry/ThoseWinterSundays.shtml

California Hills in August by Dana Gioia: www.danagioia.net/poems/californiahills.htm

Graves At Christiania by Katherine Lee Bates: oldpoetry.com/poetry/33581

Dreams of the Animals by Margaret Atwood:  
courses.lib.odu.edu/engl/cwhithau/engl439/elisabeth/finalproject/9Dreams.htm

Anger by Linda Pastan: www.norock.lhric.org/nrhs/baloga.htm

The Red Dance by Anne Sexton: oldpoetry.com/poetry/32686

California Plush by Frank Bidart: www.americanpoems.com/poets/Frank-Bidart/37

my momma moved among the days by Lucille Clifton:

my momma moved among the days
like a dreamwalked in a field;
seemed like what she touched was hers
seemed like what touched her couldn’t hold
she got us almost through the high grass
then seemed like she turned around and ran
right back in
right back on in

Coping by Audre Lorde: www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=102436223

It has rained for five days
running
the world is
a round puddle
of sunless water
where small islands
are only beginning
to cope
a young boy
in my garden
is bailing out water
from his flower patch
when I ask him why
he tells me
young seeds that have not seen sun
forget
and drown easily.

A Major Work by William Meredith: listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9804&L=wom-po&T=0&F=&S=&P=3489

Poems are hard to read
Pictures are hard to see
Music is hard to hear
And people are hard to love

But whether from brute need
Or divine energy
At last, mind eye and ear
and the great sloth heart will move.

Sometimes in Winter by Linda Patsan: 66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:6Kd6hHY6R34J:naturante.blogspot.com/+%22Sometimes+in+Winter%22+%22Linda+Pastan%22+%22the+fragile+faces%22&hl=en

When I look into
the fragile faces
of those I love,

I long to be
one of those people who skate
over the surface

of their lives, scoring
the ice with patterns
of their own making,

people who have
no children,
who are attached

to earth only by
silver blades moving
at high speed,

who have learned to use
the medium of the cold
to dance in.

The Plum by Nan Frye:

Dark globe that fits easily into the palm
your skin is speckled with pale galaxies,
an endless scattering.
Everywhere, Adam and Eve are leaving
the Garden. You are the fruit we pluck
and eat. We need no serpent to urge us,
drawn as we are to your swelling,
your purple shading to rose, your skin
that yields to the touch, to the teeth:
all the world’s waters and all its sweetness
rolled into fruit that explodes
on the tongue. We eat and drink flesh
the color of garnets, rubies, wounds.
It is bitter just under the skin.


How to Explicate a Poem by Betsy Draine of the University of Wisconsin-Madison: www.uwrf.edu/~sl01/explcat.html

A good poem is like a puzzle--the most fascinating part is studying the individual pieces carefully and then putting them back together to see how beautifully the whole thing fits together. A poem can have a number of different "pieces" that you need to look at closely in order to complete the poetic "puzzle." This sheet explains one way to attempt an explication of a poem, by examining each "piece" of the poem separately.
(An "explication" is simply an explanation of how all the elements in a poem work together to achieve the total meaning and effect.)

Examine the situation in the poem:

Does the poem tell a story? Is it a narrative poem? If so, what events occur?

Does the poem express an emotion or describe a mood?

Poetic voice: Who is the speaker? Is the poet speaking to the reader directly or is the poem told through a fictional "persona"? To whom is he speaking? Can you trust the speaker?

Tone What is the speaker's attitude toward the subject of the poem? What sort of tone of voice seems to be appropriate for reading the poem out loud? What words, images, or ideas give you a clue to the tone?

Examine the structure of the poem:

Form Look at the number of lines, their length, their arrangement on the page. How does the form relate to the content? Is it a traditional form (e.g. sonnet, limerick) or "free form"? Why do you think the poem chose that form for his poem?

Movement How does the poem develop? Are the images and ideas developed chronologically, by cause and effect, by free association? Does the poem circle back to where it started, or is the movement from one attitude to a different attitude (e.g. from despair to hope)?

Syntax How many sentences are in the poem? Are the sentences simple or complicated? Are the verbs in front of the nouns instead of in the usual "noun, verb" order? Why?

Punctuation What kind of punctuation is in the poem? Does the punctuation always coincide with the end of a poetic line? If so, this is called an end-stopped line. If there is no punctuation at the end of a line and the thought continues into the next line, this is called enjambment. Is there any punctuation in the middle of a line? Why do you think the poet would want you to pause halfway through the line?

Title What does the title mean? How does it relate to the poem itself?
Examine the language of the poem:

Diction or Word Choice: Is the language colloquial, formal, simple, unusual?

Do you know what all the words mean? If not, look them up.

What moods or attitudes are associated with words that stand out for you?
Allusions Are there any allusions (references) to something outside the poem, such as events or people from history, mythology, or religion?

Imagery Look at the figurative language of the poem-- metaphors, [symbols,] similes, analogies, personification. How do these images add to the meaning of the poem or intensify the effect of the poem?

Examine the musical devices in the poem:

Rhyme scheme: Does the rhyme occur in a regular pattern, or irregularly? Is the effect formal, satisfying, musical, funny, disconcerting?
Rhythm or meter: In most languages, there is a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a word or words in a sentence. In poetry, the variation of stressed and unstressed syllables and words has a rhythmic effect. What is the tonal effect of the rhythm here?

Other "sound effects": alliteration, assonance, consonance repetition.

What tonal effect do they have here?

Has the poem created a change in mood for you--or a change in attitude? How have the technical elements helped the poet create this effect?

deadline extended since there was only one entry.