Taking a Deep Dive: Part 2

PART 1 - PART 2

This article is a continuation of a discussion on reading with craft in mind. Aimed at writers, the intention is to convey the value of mindful reading for learning and improving one’s writing skills. You can find my introductory thoughts on the topic HERE if you’d like to catch up before continuing with this article.

Poetry Explication

A poetry explication is a deep analysis of a poem. It is meant to go beyond a simple summary of the content or primary themes. Instead, a poetry explication scrutinizes the multiple components that make up a poem.

A poem can create meaning in different ways, some more obvious than others. The form and structure of the poem, the language, imagery, and the sounds of the words themselves. All of these elements combine to create multiple layers that lend to the overall effect of the poem on the reader. A poetry explication is a means to peel back and examine those layers.

Let’s look at six elements of a poem that an explication may address. Studying how successful writers incorporate these elements into their work may allow us to apply the same methods, or principles, to our writing.

Form and Structure

Form and structure have to do with the overall way a poem is organized. How many stanzas does it have? Are the individual lines long, or short? Does it have a rhyme scheme, or does it completely avoid rhymes? These are all elements of the form and structure.

Throughout the history of written literature, many set forms of poetry have evolved. You probably know some of these, such as sonnets, limericks, villanelles, and so on. There are many such forms, some less common than others. Different world regions have produced their own forms, but in the contemporary age, poets often draw from any and all literary traditions.

Then there is free verse, which doesn’t follow any of the traditional, set forms. Free verse seems to be the dominant choice of contemporary poets, but that doesn’t mean everyone is writing willy-nilly with no thought to form and structure.

Whether you plan and organize your work ahead of time, or you sit and your desk and fly by the seat of your pants when inspiration hits you, you will make choices about the form and structure of your poem. Those choices may have be deliberate, or subconscious, but they will have an effect on how your poem is received. It is almost certain that your favorite poems are mindful of the decisions they make with form and structure. If you’re serious about your craft, you should be, too.

If you’re a seat-of-your-pants writer, you can always use the editing and re-writing process to fine-tune your form and structure to suit your purposes.

Language and Diction

The choice of words in a poem is crucial. Perhaps more so than in other genres of writing. It is poetic diction that sets poetry apart from other types of writing. The range of vocabulary incorporated into a poem may differ greatly from everyday speech. It could be more abstract, it may bend the rules of grammar, or it may include words that would otherwise seem archaic.

The words chosen may have a direct meaning, but they may sometimes carry secondary connotations, as well. A poem may rely heavily on short words, or it may wallow in a field of flowery, multi-syllable words to woo the reader. Poems may be written in highly formal language, or rely on informal language. Slang and jargon may be best suited for some poems.

Diction choices contribute to the tone, mood, and imagery of a poem. The language and diction can alter the sound and rhythm of a poem. These other elements will discussed further, but it’s important to know that there is an interplay between all of the poetic elements. Just as language and diction can steer the poem in a particular direction, each element can play with, or against, the others.

Imagery and Symbols

Written imagery is the descriptive or figurative language used to create mental pictures. Clearly, this is an important part of any creative writing. As readers, we conjure pictures in our minds, based on the images employed by an author or poet. As writers, we must be mindful of this and ensure that our imagery is conveying what we mean for it to convey.

Symbology is another important aspect of poetry. Poems are often centered around symbols. A poem about a tree may be about a tree, sure, but is it really about a tree? Or only about a tree? It may be that the tree is representative of some other idea or concept. Perhaps the poem is concrete in nature, but many times there are multiple layers of meaning.

The objects, characters, colors, and descriptions used in a poem can all contribute to the imagery and symbology. When thinking about creating imagery, remember the human senses: taste, smell, touch, sight, sound. Not every poem will target all of the senses, but each is a tool in our writing toolkit.

Some of the other tools available to a writer are metaphors, similes, hyperbole, and personification. These are types of figurative language and they are common components of poetry. Anyone serious about writing poetry should familiarize themselves with these tools of the trade.

To sum it up, imagery creates the pictures in our minds and symbology is the use of concrete images to represent concepts and ideas.

Sound and Rhythm

Whether you are reading aloud, or using the voice inside your head, there is a sound and rhythm at play in poetry. These are auditory elements, but not to be confused with the appeal to the sense of hearing that may exist in a given poem. These are literal auditory elements. The actual sound and rhythm of the poem. There is a beat and words pronounced. It may not be a song, but a poem has a lyrical component to be reckoned with.

This category is closely tied to the language and diction that we discussed earlier. The sound and rhythm of a poem can be one of its most fun parts, as a reader or writer.

This is where we can experiment with rhyme; approximate rhymes, eye rhymes, near rhymes, and more. Then there’s alliteration, consonance, and that old favorite, onomatopoeia.

Meter refers to the repeated patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. Paying close attention to the meter can be particularly important in set-form poetry. There are often prescribed meters that must be adhered to. Meter involves dealing with words, but keep in mind that meter is more than counting syllables. Understanding the relation of stress in each syllable, up or down, is the key to mastering meter.

It may be helpful to think of meter as being related to keeping time in a song. This sets the beat. The sound, then, might be thought of as the melody.

Tone and Mood

Don’t take that tone with me. Have you ever heard that phrase? The tone of voice, in speaking or writing, conveys attitude. You can have a condescending tone, a sarcastic tone, or a dramatic tone. The mood is the atmosphere of the piece. The emotional state, so to speak.

The descriptive words one might use for tone can usually be applied to mood. To be clear, though, the context is different. The tone can be sarcastic, for example, but that relates to the attitude of the narrator or character. The mood of that same text may be dreary. In a different instance, it may be that both the tone and mood are described as upbeat.

You can see that the words tone and mood may seem to describe the same thing, but they are not interchangeable. Each has its complementary role to the other, but they are distinct elements of a poem (or any writing).

Themes and Ideas

Some people might say this final section is the most important. What are the themes and ideas the writer is addressing? How are they conveyed to the reader? How does the writer develop them throughout the poem? These questions are important because it has everything to do the underlying message being delivered.

Ideas are related to the theme, but this is another instance of there being important distinctions. If a poet writes a sonnet about depression, one could say that the theme is mental health. Depression is the object used to tell the story.

It could be as simple as that, but most often there will be certain ideas the writer is trying to get across. The idea may be to tell the reader that they can overcome their challenges. The idea may be to explain to the reader why they shouldn’t give up.

Possibly the most well-known theme in poetry is love. Nature is a popular theme. There are dozens of relatively common themes in literature, including poetry, but the potential themes for poetry are only limited by the writer’s imagination.

When reading poetry, most of the time the theme will be apparent. Other times, the theme may be more obscure, or confusing. Analyzing a poem requires answering the question of the theme. Not to forget the ideas, though. Together, they form the message the poet is sending.

The Explication

To this point, it may have seemed like I was telling you more about how to write poetry than to read poetry. That's pretty accurate, actually. All of these elements I’ve been discussing are the building blocks for writing your own poetry. But that’s the point.

The process of explicating someone else’s poem requires you to know, or learn about, the poetic elements. To explicate a poem is to force yourself to dig through it with a fine tooth comb. How did the poet write this specific poem? If a poem is one of your personal favorites, why? What makes that one resonate with you?

Maybe there is a poem you don’t like, but it happens to be very famous. Again, why? Even though you may not like the poem, wouldn’t you like to know why so many other people think it’s great?

If you want to write poems that not only reach people but make an impact on them, you need to have command of your craft. Explicating the work of accomplished poets and writers is a self-study course in creative writing.