English poetry
(don't just take the points. it's rude and i will report you, i'm serious. put effort into this, you.)
annotate a poem
you may want to print the poem out and use pen and paper. you can take a picture of your completed annotation and upload to dropbox. or you can type it if you prefer.
read the poem aloud. identify any of the following elements and make notations on or near the text of the poem:
• note the structure of the poem
• note language that denotes regionality, education of speaker, rhetorical purpose, etc. is it conversational, colloquial or does the speaker fall back on formal language?
• note the tone: is the poem celebratory, depressed, confused? does it shift or change?
• speaker/persona: what does the poem reveal about the speaker?
• note imagery: what images does the poem use to create meaning or set the mood?
• note symbolism: what images become symbolic?
• note any uses of figurative language
• note any repetition, rhyme, sound devices (alliteration, consonance, assonance, rhythm, onomatopoeia).
• circle any part of the poem that stands out, confuses you, or is important.
• write questions in the margin; highlight unusual words; mark phrases that indicate the poem’s meaning.
• determine the poem’s theme and draw arrows to the lines that support the theme.
you can use the poem below, or you can choose your own to annotate.
guilt
we would fish,
and we would enjoy it.
that's what my mother said.
i had never fished before,
so i called you.
at the pier we baited our hooks –
slipped barbs into rancid shrimp.
the shining silver pierced one side
and emerged,
glistening, on the other.
then we cast.
yours landed far away
near one of the fishing boats,
but mine landed close –
too close perhaps –
to the solitary black cormorant
who clumsily flapped away
and screamed at me in its foreign tongue.
then came reluctant waiting.
finally, i felt a sharp tug
and i saw it –
the blue-white streak
cut through the brine
like harnessed lightning.
a mackerel.
the monofilament stretched taut.
slowly i reeled it in.
as it lay there,
staining the dock crimson,
you killed it.
“just a fish,” you claimed.
but when it was cooked
for our dinner
i tasted
guilt.
--jed chambers