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The Poetry Project

Poetry Essay Prompts (1971-2005)

Margaret Atwood (1939- On Writing Poetry (Waterstoneís Poetry Lecture)
Delivered at Hay On Wye, Wales, June 1995.

Read Siren Song carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how Atwood manipulates the language to draw a comparison between the myths and modern life, luring the reader into the folklore.

W. H. Auden (1907 - 1973 ) Poems Online
Read The Unknown Citizen carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how Auden manipulates the language to identify the limitations implicit in his society.

Read As I Walked Out One Evening by WH Auden carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that contrasts the attitude of the clock with that of the lover. Be sure to analyze how such stylistic devices as imagery and other language choices are selected to illustrate the meaning of the poem.

Read Law Like Love carefully. Then write an essay analyzing the differences between the conceptions of "law" in lines 1-34 and those in lines 35-60.

Elizabeth Bishop (1911 - 1979) Biography
Poems Online
Read One Art carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how such devices as verse form and diction are manipulated by Bishop to reveal the speaker's various attitudes toward loss.

William Blake (1757 - 1827) Biography
Poetry Online

Songs of Experience

The Songs of Innocence

Eavan Boland (1944- ) Biography
Poems Online
Read It's a Woman's Worldcarefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the poem reveals the speaker's complex conception of a "woman's world." Write your essay based on the organization of thid poem, changing paragraphs where there are shifts in meaning or tone.

Read "The Pomegranate" by Eavan Boland

Anne Bradstreet (1612 - 1672)
Read The Author to Her Book carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the poem's controlling metaphor expresses the complex attitude of the speaker.

E. K. Braithwaite Biography
Read "Ogun" carefully. The write an essay in which you discuss how the diction, imagery, and movement of verse in the poem reflect differences in tone and content between the two differing larger sections.

Anne Brontë (1820-1849)
A Reminiscence

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)
On The Death of Ann Brontë

Emily Jane Brontë (1818-1848)
Selected Poetry

Gwendolyn Brooks (117 - 2000) Poems Online

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Selected Poetry

Robert Browning (1812 - 1889) Poems Online

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) Poems Online
Read carefully the following poem, "The Destruction of Sennacherib" by George Gordon, Lord Byron. Then write a well-organized essay in which you show the speaker's attitude toward "the Angel of Death." Using specific references to the text, show how the fast-paced, tumbling, rushing feeling of anapests reveals the speaker's attitude.

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
Selected Poetry

Lorna Dee Cervantes (1954 - ) Poems Online

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 - 1400) Poems Online

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834) Poems Online
Selected Poetry

Complete List of Poems

Billy Collins
Undressing Emily, Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes

E. E. Cummings (1894-1962)
Selected Poetry

Billy Collins
Poet Laureate Information
Billy Collins Poems
Poetry 180 A Poem Every Day for American High Schools

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Selected Poetry

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Selected Poetry

Poems Online

Read The Last Night That She Lived carefully. Then write an essay in which analyze how the use of language reveals the speaker's attitude toward the upcoming death.

Read "To a Locomotive in Winter" by Walt Whitman and "I Like to See it Lap the Miles" by Emily Dickenson carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that compares the both poets manipulate the language to reveal their attitude toward locomotives.

(HD) Hilda Doolittle (1886 - 1961) Poems Online
Read "To Helen" by Poe and "Helen" by HD carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language choices made by each poet reveal the two speakers' differing views of Helen. You might want to consider diction, imagery, form, and tone.

Selected Poetry by HD

John Donne (1572 - 1631) Poems Online
Read "The Broken Heart" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the speaker uses the varied imagery of the poem to convey his attitude toward the nature of love.
Selected Poetry by John Donne

Rita Dove (1952- ) Poems Online

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) Poems Online
Read "London, 1802" by William Wordsworth and "Douglass" by Dunbar carefully, noting how they each respond to the conditions of a particular time and place. Then write a well-organized essay that compares and contrasts the two p[oems and the relationships between them.
Selected Poetry by Dunbar

Bob Dylan
Analysis of Bob Dylan's "Idiot Wind"

Bob Dylan's Original Lyrics -- a tremendous list of all Dylan's works.

Richard Eberhart (1904- ) Poetry Online
Read The Groundhog carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language of the poem reveals the changing attitues of the speaker as he considers the metamorphosis of the dead groundhog.

George Eliot (1819-1880)
Selected Poetry

T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965) Poetry Online
Selected Poetry by T. S. Eliot

Robert Frost (1874-1963) Poems Online
Read "There Was a Boy" by William Wordsworth and "The Most of It" by Frost carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the the stylistic devices in each poem reveal the differing encounters with nature. Distinguish between the attitudes (toward nature, toward the solitary individual, etc.) illustrated in the poems, and analyze how the poets use the language to present these attitudes.

Read the two poems by Snyder and Frost carefully. The write a well-organized essay that analyzes how eah poet manipulates the language to create a specific tone.

Selected Poetry by Robert Frost:

Christmas Trees

Birches

Design

Home Burial

Mending Wall

The Road Not Taken (Hear Frost read this poem.)

To Earthward

Read "Bright Star" by John Keats and "Choose Something Like a Star" by Frost carefully, noting that Frost makes an allusion to the Keats poem. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes their similarities and differences, especially in theme and style.

John Gardner's Grendal

Louise Gluck (1943 - ) Poetry Online
Read Spring and All by Williams andFor Jane Meyers by Louise Gluck carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the the stylistic devices in each poem reveal differing attitudes toward the coming of spring.

Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928) Poetry Online

Satires of Circumstance: A Collection of Poems

Selected Poetry by Hardy

Joy Harjo (1951 - ) Poetry Online

Seamus Heaney (1939- ) Poetry Online
Read Blackberry-Picking carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the physical intensity of the language of the poem is used to convey a deeper understanding of the speaker's experience. You may want to consider such elements as diction, imagery, metaphor, rhyme, rhythm, and form.

George Herbert (1593 - 1633) Forty Poems
Read your choice of any of the forty poems which follow carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that defines the meaning portrayed in the poem of your choice. Be sure to analyze how George Herbert specifically manipulates the language to convey a deeper meaning.

Garrett Hongo (1951 - ) Poetry Online

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889) 72 Poems
Directions for Close Reading: Practice reading the
72 poems which follow carefully. Mark up the poems in the following manner: Define the purpose/ meaning/ attitude portrayed in each of the poems. Draw a box around the chunks that have a unified purpose/ meaning/attitude. Write a sentence that defines that specific purpose/meaning/attitude. Several difficult words are linked to dictionary.com. Click on these words and use the correct definition when defining the poem's purpose/meaning/attitude. Locate and name the rhetoical and stylistic devices employed by Hopkins. Write a sentence which analyzes how he uses each device to convey a deeper purpose/meaning/attitude.

A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
Selected Poetry

Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967) Poetry Online

Ben Johnson (172 - 1637) Poetry Online

John Keats (1795 - 1821) Poetry Online
Read Bright Star by Keats and Choose Something Like a Star by Robert Frost carefully, noting that Frost makes an allusion to the Keats poem. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes their similarities and differences, especially in theme and style.
Selected Poetry
Various Poems

Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)
Selected Poems

Phillip Larkin (1922 - 1985) Poetry Online
Read Poetry of Departures carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the poet's diction reveals his attitude toward the two ways of living mentioned in the poem.

DH Lawrence (1885 - 1930) Poetry Online
Read two versions of The Piano carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the characteristics of the second poem make it better than the first. Use evidence from both poems to support your analysis.

Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931)
Selected Poetry

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Selected Poetry

Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
Patterns

Robert Lowell (1917 - 1977) Poetry Online

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
Selected Poems

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Selected Poetry

Andrew Marvel (1621 - 1678) Poetry Online
To His Coy Mistress

Selected Poetry by Marvel

Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950)
Selected Poetry

Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Selected Poetry

George Meredith (1828-1909)
Selected Poetry

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
Selected Poetry

John Milton (1608 - 1674) Poetry Online

Andrew Motion,
CAUSA BELLI

Marianne Moore (1887 - 1972) Poetry Online

Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)
Selected Poetry

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Selected Poetry

Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963) Poetry Online
Read Sow by Sylvia Plath carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language of the poem reflects the neighbor's, the narrator's, and the reader's perceptions of the sow. You might consider such poetical devices as diction, devices of sound, images, and allusions.

Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972) Poetry Online

Edgar Allen Poe (1809 - 1849) Poetry Online
Read To Helen by Poe and Helen by HD carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language choices made by each poet reveal the two speakers' differing views of Helen. You might want to consider diction, imagery, form, and tone.

Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744) Poetry Online

Adrienne Rich (1929- ) Poetry Online
Read Storm Warnings carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the organization of the poem and its concrete details reveal both its literal and figurative meanings. Consider how these meaning relate to the title.

Theodore Roethke (1908 - 1963) Poetry Online
Read Elegy for Jane carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language choices made by the poet reveal the speaker's attutide toward his former student, Jane.

Read Dolor by Roethke

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Selected Poetry

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Selected Poetry

Anne Sexton
Cinderella

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) Poetry Online
Read the following soliloquy from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II carefully. Then, write a well organized essay that analyzes how the diction, imagery, and syntax help to convey his state of mind--his frustration with his inability to sleep.
Selected Poetry by Shakespeare

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822) Poetry Online
Selected Poetry by Shelly

Leslie Marmon Silko (1948 - ) Poetry Online

Gary Snyder
Read the two poems by Snyder and Frost carefully. The write a well-organized essay that analyzes how eah poet manipulates the language to create a specific tone.

Sonnet Assignment

May Swenson (1919 - 1989) Poetry Online
Read The Centaur carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language choices (imagery, structure, point of view) made by the poet convey meaning in the poem.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892) Poetry Online
Selected Poetry by Tennyson

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)
Selected Poetry

Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953) Poetry Online

John Updike (1932 - ) Poetry Online
Read "The Great Scarf of Birds" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the poem's organization, diction, and figurative language prepare the reader for the speaker's concluding response.
Derek Walcott (1930- ) Poetry Online

Phillis Wheatley (1753?-1784)
Selected Poetry

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) Poetry Online
Selected Poetry by Whitman

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
Selected Poetry

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
Selected Poetry

Richard Wilbur (1921- ) Poetry Online
Read "The Death of a Toad" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how formal elements such as syntax, diction, and imagery reveal the speaker's reaction to the death of the toad.
Poet Richard Wilbur's Letter About The Death of a Toad

Miller Williams President Clinton's Inaugral

William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963) Poetry Online
Read Spring and All by Williams andFor Jane Meyers by Louise Gluck carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the stylistic devices in each poem reveal differing attitudes toward coming spring.

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) Poetry Online
Read There Was a Boy" by Wordsworth and The Most of It by Robert Frost carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the the stylistic devices in each poem reveal the differing encounters with nature. Distinguish between the attitudes (toward nature, toward the solitary individual, etc.) illustrated in the poems, and analyze how the poets use the language to present these attitudes.
Selected Poetry by Wordsworth
The Wondering Minstrels

William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939) Poetry On line

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