I don’t understand poetry! How do I go about analysing a poem?

First of all- don’t be intimidated by poetry! Think about it as nothing more than a set of words arranged in a specific order. It’s down to us to add some meaning to that order. It’s like a puzzle and you have to work out how each piece fits in. We can think about a poem in several ways. To begin, the bigger picture. When you’re in your exam, perhaps doing your unseen poetry section, read through the poem a few times. What stands out to you immediately? Your first impressions? Don’t think too hard about it and just note down what you think the poet is trying to say overall. Try to pick out key words, themes, concepts- perhaps the poet repeats certain words or phrases. If the poem rhymes, try and work out why certain words have been rhymed with others- does this give them MORE or LESS importance? What do you think the poet was trying to say by rhyming them? What about the rhythm of the poem? Can this help us at all? Now we can start breaking the poem down. In poetry, we call a paragraph a ‘stanza’- count how many stanzas there are. Is there some significance in the number of stanzas? Perhaps there are five stanzas, meaning that number three is framed in the middle. Or, maybe there are six stanzas, and they seem to be arranged in pairs. We can use all of these clues- words, rhymes, rhythm and the physical look of the poem to break it down to help us enhance our understanding. After this you can keep breaking the poem down. Go deeper into the types of words being used- are they soft, aggressive, short, long? Do they all relate to something similar (e.g. the weather- ‘raining’ ‘clouds’ ‘sunny’ ‘snow’ ‘blue sky’) and what does this tell us about the mood the poet is trying to convey? How about the VERBS being used? Are they active (e.g. ‘I eat’ or passive ‘I am being eaten’) and what can this tell us?