For my prewriting work, I wrote out the poem (the same poem I used on the earlier 8 tips for responding post) Ars Poetica. After I wrote it out, I annotated it in depth, using my own uniquely-crafted system-- as you can too! Mark up the poem as much as you need to in order to help you pick it apart, and formulate some good ideas about it. Here is a picture of what I did:
I then formulated some solid claims about the poem. I used the claims from this presentation about crafting a killer thesis to help me out. I took the ideas I formulated during my initial response to the poem, and looked at them closer. What was accurate? What was different than I expected? What did I learn? What stood out to me? Then I turned these observations into claims. The claims I formulated were the following:
1. policy claim: "A poem should not mean/ but be." Poetry should be transcendent of itself.
2. definition claim: A poem is not just a cluster of words, but a way for us to understand ourselves better.
3. comparison claim: Poetry is like "casement ledges where the moss has grown"-- an ethereal edge that we can't quite define.
4. evaluation claim: It is better for poetry to be metaphysical than to carry a solid meaning.
5. casual claim: Comparisons used in Ars Poetica result in the transcendent nature we crave in poetry.
I then used these claims to generate an initial thesis statement:
Although any poem is in actuality just a cluster of words, there is a transcendent nature that poetry possesses which allows us to understand ourselves and our emotions better through it.
Remember, this is still just the beginning of the analysis process! There is still much work to be done. Follow these steps and you'll be well on your way to a killer poetry analysis.
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