1. “Try to meet a poem on its terms not yours. If you have to ‘relate’ to a poem in order to understand it, you aren’t reading it sufficiently. In other words, don’t try to fit the poem into your life. Try to see what world the poem creates. Then, if you are lucky, its world will help you re-see your own.” - Mark Yakich, “Reading a Poem: 20 Strategies”

2. What do good readers of poetry do?

3. Steps for annotating a poem 1.Read it through at least twice (read aloud). 2.Go back through the poem and annotate for diction; think about denotation and connotation. 3.Identify the speaker/voice of the poem. Annotate lines that help you identify the writer’s tone and the poem’s mood. 4.Look for patterns in the form and structure of the poem. How many lines & stanzas? How many words or syllables in each line? Are there rhymes? 5.What literary devices does the writer use? 6.What is the poem’s larger context? Make connections to background info about society/time period

8. Step Two: Diction Denotation: the literal or primary meaning of a word Connotation: the cultural and/or emotional feelings or ideas that the word suggests