Reading Poetry
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What Is Reading Poetry?
Why Learn How to Read a Poem?
Tips for Reading Poetry
Use the Strategy
Practice the Strategy
Reading Poetry
What is reading poetry?
Reading poetry is
different from reading
novels or notes from
your friends.
Many poems are puzzles. You
have to figure out what the poet
wants you to see or understand.
Reading Poetry
What is reading poetry?
Reading poetry requires close
attention to every word—and
sometimes every punctuation
mark.
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Reading Poetry
Why learn how to read a poem?
When you learn how to read a poem, you can
• understand how word choice
affects meaning
• realize how important rhythm
is in language and literature
• see how punctuation affects
rhythm and meaning
• learn to recognize all kinds of
rhymes
Reading Poetry
Why learn how to read a poem?
Imagery, figurative language, and symbol are
especially important in poetry.
When you learn how to read a poem, you learn
reading skills that will help you recognize images,
figures of speech, and symbols in prose, too.
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Reading Poetry
Imagery is language that appeals to the senses:
sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
Juicy, tart plums
Choking, thick black smoke
Scratchy, hot wool sweater
Sparkling drops of dew
What senses do these images appeal to?
Reading Poetry
Figurative language is language that describes
one thing in terms of something else and is not
literally true.
My heart is like a singing bird.
The road was a ribbon of moonlight.
The leaves were whispering to the night.
What two things are being compared in each of
these figures of speech?
Reading Poetry
A symbol is a person, a place, a thing, or an event
that has its own meaning and stands for something
beyond itself as well.
What do the images above symbolize?
Reading Poetry
Tips for Reading Poetry
Look at the
title. Think
about the
image or
images it
creates.
The Bells
HEAR the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody
foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme, . . .
Edgar Allan Poe
Reading Poetry
Tips for Reading Poetry
HEAR the sledges with the bells,
Read the poem
Silver bells!
silently. Pay
What a world of merriment their melody
attention to
foretells!
punctuation.
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
Pause longer at
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
periods or
To the tintinnabulation that so musically
other end
wells
marks.
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, . . .
Pause briefly at
commas and
semicolons.
Reading Poetry
Tips for Reading Poetry
If there’s no
punctuation at
the end of a
line, don’t
pause.
HEAR the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody
foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically
wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, . . .
Reading Poetry
Tips for Reading Poetry
HEAR the sledges with the bells,
Read the poem
Silver bells!
aloud. Feel the
What a world of merriment their melody
rhythm of the
foretells!
poem.
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
It’s often
easier to make
sense of a
poem when
you hear how
it sounds.
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically
wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, . . .
Reading Poetry
Tips for Reading Poetry
HEAR the sledges with the bells,
Read the poem
Silver bells!
a third time.
What a world of merriment their melody
Think about
foretells!
images that
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
come to mind
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
as you read.
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically
wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, . . .
Reading Poetry
Tips for Reading Poetry
HEAR the sledges with the bells,
Look for vivid
Silver bells!
verbs that help
What a world of merriment their melody
you see the
foretells!
action.
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
Look for
comparisons
that help you
see something
in a new way.
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically
wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, . . .
Reading Poetry
Tips for Reading Poetry
HEAR the sledges with the bells,
Poets pay
Silver bells!
special
What a world of merriment their melody
attention to
foretells!
word choice.
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
What unusual
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
words does the
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
poet use?
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically
wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, . . .
Reading Poetry
Tips for Reading Poetry
HEAR the sledges with the bells,
Think about the
Silver bells!
poem’s
What a world of merriment their melody
meaning. What
foretells!
does it say to
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
you? Does it
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
relate to your
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
life in any
With a crystalline delight;
way?
Keeping time, time, time,
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In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically
wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, . . .
Reading Poetry
Use the Strategy
As you read “The Sea,” stop at each open-book
sign
and think about what you have just
read.
Stop
and
think.
Answer
the
question.
These questions will help you learn how to use
reading poetry as a reading strategy.
Example
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Reading Poetry
Use the Strategy
The sea is a hungry dog,
Giant and gray.
He rolls on the beach all day.
With his clashing teeth and shaggy
jaws
Hour upon hour he gnaws
The rumbling, tumbling stones,
And “Bones, bones, bones!”
The giant sea dog moans,
Licking his greasy paws.
James Reeves
The poet
Whatcompares
comparison
thedoes
sea to
the
a poet
hungry
make
dog.
in“He”
line
in
1? line
Who3 is
refers
“he” to
in the
line sea.
3?
Reading Poetry
Practice the Strategy
The sea is a hungry dog,
Giant and gray.
He rolls on the beach all day.
With his clashing teeth and
shaggy jaws
Hour upon hour he gnaws
The rumbling, tumbling stones,
And “Bones, bones, bones!”
The giant sea dog moans,
Licking his greasy paws.
Read “The Sea”
aloud. Pay close
attention to the
punctuation.
Reading Poetry
Practice the Strategy
The sea is a hungry dog,
Giant and gray.
He rolls on the beach all day.
With his clashing teeth and
shaggy jaws
Hour upon hour he gnaws
The rumbling, tumbling stones,
And “Bones, bones, bones!”
The giant sea dog moans,
Licking his greasy paws.
How does this
comma affect the
way you read the
first two lines?
Why do you think
there’s no
punctuation at the
end of this line?
Reading Poetry
Practice the Strategy
The sea is a hungry dog,
Giant and gray.
He rolls on the beach all day.
With his clashing teeth and
shaggy jaws
Hour upon hour he gnaws
The rumbling, tumbling stones,
And “Bones, bones, bones!”
The giant sea dog moans,
Licking his greasy paws.
How does this
comma affect the
way you read the
first two lines?
The comma tells
the reader to
pause briefly
instead of taking a
longer pause for a
period.
Reading Poetry
Practice the Strategy
The sea is a hungry dog,
Giant and gray.
He rolls on the beach all day.
With his clashing teeth and
shaggy jaws
Hour upon hour he gnaws
The rumbling, tumbling stones,
And “Bones, bones, bones!”
The giant sea dog moans,
Licking his greasy paws.
Why do you think
there’s no
punctuation at the
end of this line?
There’s no end
punctuation
because the poet
does not want the
reader to stop at
the end of this line.
Reading Poetry
Practice the Strategy
1. Continue reading the poem. Notice where
there is and is not end punctuation.
Now, read the poem again, pausing at the
end of each line instead of where there is end
punctuation.
What happens to the meaning of the poem?
Reading Poetry
2. Poets often use vivid verbs to help create an
image. List the verbs in lines 3, 5, 8, 9, 10,
and 11 of “The Sea.” How do these verbs help
sustain the image of the dog and help you
visualize the sea?
3. This poet wants you to see the sea as a hungry
dog. How might a hungry dog behave? Why
didn’t the poet compare the sea to a well-fed
dog? What image of the sea would that create?
Reading Poetry
4. Look through the poem at all the ways the sea
is compared to a dog. See if you can answer
the following questions.
a. How would the sea “roll” on the beach?
b. What would its “clashing teeth and shaggy
jaws” be?
c. When the sea dog is “licking his greasy
paws,” what is the sea doing?
Reading Poetry
d. In line 13, what does the poet imagine the
sea spray is?
• When the sea dog “howls and hollos,” what
is the sea really doing?
• What sound of the sea is compared to the
dog’s quiet snore?
Reading Poetry
5. Poets use onomatopoeia to
create sound effects that
echo the meaning of the
poem. Three words in “The
Sea” that sound like the
actions they represent are
clashing, roars, and
rumbling. Find three more
examples of onomatopoeia
in “The Sea.”
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Reading Poetry
The End