My Five Poetry Goals

My five poetry goals are: 

     

1.) To have the patience to strategically reread each poem multiple times

2.) To be able to identify the different types of poems 

3.) To be able to identify the speaker in the poem

4.) To be able to identify the purpose and main themes that characterize a poem 

5.) To be able to identify the symbolism within poetry 

These poems were denser and harder to understand than most poems I am used to reading.  If I follow my five goals I think I will be able to understand poetry much better.  The Peterson’s AP poetry section mentioned several times how key it  is to reread each poem several times (they suggested four) so my first goal is to reread each piece of poetry I have to read several times to uncover deeper meanings within. My second goal is to be able to identify amongst the different types/forms of poetry.  As I was answering some of the practice problems I realized that I don’t know my forms of poetry very well and it was difficult to identify what was what for me.  My third goal is to be able to identify who is speaking in the poem.  I noticed when they asked who was speaking during the Sonnet 55 practice problems I could not identify who the speaker was and I had to guess.  I also struggled to identify the speaker as I read The Terrorist, He Watches  for the forum posts.  Learning how to identify the speaker will take some practice as it is not basic memorization like identifying the different types of poems but I think that the skill will come as I work more with poetry.  Usually one of the question about a poem is why it was written, or the themes in a poem.  My fourth goal is to be able to identify the purpose and main themes that characterize a poem or why it was written.  I usually struggle with this as I don’t usually understand who is speaking and because of complex symbolism used that I can’t recognize.  My fifth goal is to be able to recognize and understand the symbolism used in poetry.  I think that My third, fourth, and fifth goals are all interlaced and as I become better at one skill it will make it will help me with the other weaknesses I have.  I think that these skills will take time to acquire but I think if I keep these goals in mind as I read poetry it will become easier and easier each time I analyze another poem.