Short Poems Compress Much Meaning in Few Words, Largely Because of Careful Diction

Objective: To analyze a poem for its elements and compose an effective analysis within a time limit.

Short poems compress much meaning in few words, largely because of careful diction. Consider how Theodore Roethke (1898-1963) creates mood and atmosphere largely through his choice of words. He wrote the poem in 1948, but significant changes in technology seem not to have changes the point of the poem.

Read the questions and use the questions as a guideline to reading and annotating the poem. You do not have to respond to the questions.

1.  How do you characterize the speaker in this poem?

2.  What is the setting, and how does it encapsulate modern life?

3.  How is the poem structured? Consider its two grammatical parts along with its rhetorical patterns of repetition and parallelism. How does line 8 give point and focus to the catalog that precedes it?

4.  Analyze the diction and its impact on mood. List concrete nouns in first seven lines. Which are nouns are modified by adjectives? What is the effect?

5.  Consider the literal and figurative meaning of dust. To what does the speaker compare it? How are verbs and adjectives suggestive in the relationship between dust and those upon whom it settles?

6.  How does the poem’s final line reinforce the meaning of the whole? What does the speaker suggest about the people he has observed?

After reading the questions,

·  Prepare a few sheets of paper and a timer.

·  Set the timer to forty minutes

·  Open the stapled document and begin the timer.

·  Read the prompt and annotate the prompt.

·  Read and annotate the poem and then respond to the prompt in a full essay in your own handwriting.

·  When you are finished with your composition, record the time of completion at the bottom of the page and submit the essay in class as a poetry response.