Analysing Poetry

Approaching a poem

Poetry compresses feelings and ideas into carefully chosen words. In the Kenyan Senior School Literature in English course you read poems by African and world poets, such as Okot p'Bitek, David Rubadiri, Jack Mapanje, Grace Nichols and Gabriel Okara. A good reading follows steps: read aloud twice, find the subject, and then study how the poet says it.

Key elements

• Persona: the voice speaking.
• Subject matter: what the poem is about.
• Theme: the central message (e.g. love, loss, corruption, identity).
• Tone and mood: attitude of the persona; feeling created in the reader.
• Audience: to whom the poem speaks.

Language devices (figures of speech)

Sound devices

• Alliteration: repetition of initial consonants.
• Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds.
• Onomatopoeia: words that imitate sounds (buzz, thud).
• Rhyme: matching end sounds; a scheme is marked with letters (abab).
• Rhythm and repetition: create music and emphasis.

Structure and form

• Stanza, line, enjambment (a sentence continuing to the next line).
• Types: sonnet (14 lines), ballad (story song), elegy (lament for the dead), ode (praise), free verse (no fixed pattern), haiku (3 lines of 5-7-5 syllables), dirge and oral songs.

Worked example 1

"Hunger, the thief, walks into our huts, / eats the last grain of our hope."

• Device: personification and metaphor (hunger as a thief).
• Meaning: poverty robs families of both food and optimism.
• Tone: sorrowful.

Worked example 2: writing a commentary

Use P.E.E.L.:

• Point: The poet portrays hardship.
• Evidence: "the last grain of our hope".
• Explanation: The word "last" suggests that hope is almost gone.
• Link: This supports the theme of poverty.

Planning a full analysis

1. Title and what it suggests
2. Subject and theme
3. Persona and tone
4. Language and sound devices with effect
5. Structure and form
6. Relevance to Kenyan society today (for instance corruption, environment, unity)

Always explain the effect of every device; do not simply name it.

Try it

• Identify the device in "The moon is a silver coin."
• Write a four-line poem about your school using personification and alliteration.
• State the tone of a poem about a lost village and explain two words that show it.
• Choose a poem in your anthology and write a P.E.E.L. paragraph on its theme.