Sometimes, knowing the type of poem you’re studying, such as whether it’s a sonnet or sestina or haiku, can be very important to being able to discuss its meaning. You can often determine what type of poetry you’re dealing with by examining the rhyme scheme (the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line) and the meter (the number of poetic “feet” each line has).  For example, Edna St. Vincent Millay tackles how difficult it is to write poetry in her poem “I Will Put Chaos into Fourteen Lines.” Knowing that this poem is a sonnet about writing sonnets helps explain part of what the poem’s goal is: putting a little modern “chaos” into a very old and established poetic form. Recognizing that Millay uses a classic Petrarchan rhyme scheme and that many of the lines are in iambic pentameter (meaning they sound like “ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM”) will help you identify the poem as a sonnet. Many modern poets write in free verse, but this doesn’t mean they aren’t also paying close attention to the form of their poetry. Look for elements such as alliteration, assonance, repetition, enjambment (the breaking of poetic lines), and rhythm in free verse poetry just as you would in more formally structured poetry. This is particularly important for poems such as dramatic monologues, where the speaker is definitely ‘’not’’ supposed to be the poet. Felicia Hemans, Robert Browning, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson all wrote dramatic monologues from the points of view of characters very different than themselves. Identifying the speaker can be trickier in lyric poetry, such as the type written by poets like Wordsworth or John Keats, because these poems are often written in first-person but don’t make a clear distinction between the speaker and the poet. Nevertheless, even in poems that are written using first-person pronouns like “I”, always refer to the speaker as the speaker, not the poet. Just as with prose writing, symbolism shows up all the time in poetry. Be on the lookout for repeated elements, especially things like colors or natural imagery.  For example, in William Wordsworth’s poem “Tintern Abbey,” the eye is an important symbol that represents many things, including the poet’s imagination. Wordsworth will often play on the similarity of sound between I and eye, further relating the two concepts. Symbolism is all over the place in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. One key symbol is the hall of Heorot, King Hrothgar’s great golden mead-hall. Heorot symbolizes community, bravery, warmth, safety, wealth, and civilization, so when Grendel invades Heorot and murders warriors in their sleep there, he’s violating everything about the Scyldings’ lives. Just make sure you  know the basics such as structure of the poem, themes, and overarching idea or story. It can sometimes be helpful to memorize a key line or two from a poem so that you can use it as evidence. For example, if you’re studying Walt Whitman’s huge poem Leaves of Grass, you might want to memorize the short phrase “dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem.” This short quotation encapsulates much of the meaning from the larger text, and being able to drop it into an exam will help you support your claims. Context is just as important for poetry as it is for fiction or drama. Knowing what types of issues the poet may have been addressing can help you understand the goal of the poetry. Contextual information can also be useful in keeping you from making incorrect statements about poems. For example, it’s important to know that Shakespeare’s sonnets are not all written to female lovers, even though that was the standard for sonnets of the era. In fact, most of them are written to a “fair youth,” a wealthy young man to whom the poet has some sort of deep, possibly romantic, attraction.
Note what type of poem you’re dealing with. Identify the speaker and the audience of the poem, when possible. Write down any symbols in the poem and where they appear. Remember that you don’t have to memorize poems you’re studying. Look up context for your poems.