A/P Philip Holden (email: ellhpj@nus.edu.sg)

Week 4: Critical Reading -- Poetry

In this week we'll be considering the third of our genres, poetry. Poetry often seems the most difficult of the three genres, but, as we'll see, many forms of writing we encounter in our everyday life could be considered "poetic." With poetry, it seems particularly important that we understand what makes a poem "poetic"--what we might, following Eaglestone, call the "intrinsic factors" behind the poem. I've prepared a guide for those of you who are unfamiliar with poetry to help in this. Read the four poems you've been given first purely for enjoyment and then try to close-read the poems with the help of the guide. It will be useful to print out the .pdf section of the guide and bring it to our class meeting.

Reading

1. Grace Nichols. “Fear” and “Island Man.”  The Fat Black Women’s Poems. London: Virago, 1987.

2. Alfian bin Sa’at. “Neighbours” and “Good Morning.” One Fierce Hour. Singapore: Landmark, 1998. 8-9.

3. Wordsworth, William. "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802"

[available as a Word document in the IVLE workbin]

4. On-line guide on How to Read a Poem.

Questions

Post a reply to ONE of these questions on the IVLE site at any time before 6 a.m. on the day of our class meeting.

1. Can you think of any kind of text that you might read or listen to in everyday life which has poetic qualities and could be considered "poetic?" Justify your choice by using some of the terms in the "Reading a Poem" handout.
2. Choose any of the three poems and, having read the poem closely with the "Reading a Poem" guide in hand, make some observations regarding how any of the aspects of poetry outlined in the handout (setting, structure/development, voice/persona, imagery and rhythm, metaphor, intertextuality) work in the poem. Note this doesn't have to be a huge thesis, but only some preliminary observations: you could, for instance, look at which images are most striking to you in one poem.

Last updated: 1 July, 2003