IB English A Lit How to Write About Poetry Notes

Writing About Poetry: A Framework for Analysis

Analysing a poem is not about finding hidden meanings the poet concealed. It is about understanding how the language, form, and structure of the poem create meaning for the reader. Your analysis should move between the specific (this word, this line, this sound) and the general (what this reveals about the poem's central concerns).

Start with a Reading

Read the poem twice before you write anything. On the first reading, register your response: what is this poem about? What does it feel like? What images or phrases stay with you? On the second reading, start to ask how: how does the language create that effect? What specific choices are doing the work?

1. First reading: register your immediate response without forcing interpretation; note the dominant tone, the images that stay with you, and where the poem feels most alive.
2. Second reading: convert impressions into evidence; mark enjambments, shifts in tone, key images, and sound patterns, and ask which specific choices create the effects you noticed on the first reading.

Claim, Evidence, Analysis

Every analytical paragraph should make a claim about the poem's meaning or effect, provide evidence (a quotation or specific reference), and then analyse how the language creates that effect. The analysis is the central step: do not stop at identifying a device. Explain what it does.

1. Claim: state what you are arguing about this moment in the poem; not 'the poet uses a simile' but a claim about meaning: what the poem is doing and why it matters at this point.