Writing a Paragraph About a Poem: Study Guide (English Literature 2.6)

A paragraph about a poem is a short argument about what the poem does

You now have the tools for reading a poem: the speaker, the structure, contrasts, words and phrases, and similes and metaphors. This topic is about putting them in writing. The skill is the same as in Topic 1.5: a paragraph that includes

1. a claim that requires defence with evidence from the text, and
2. the evidence itself,

with a link that explains how the evidence supports the claim. What changes is the evidence. In a poem it is often a few words, so every quoted word has to earn its place.

The device-to-effect chain

Strong poetry analysis moves in chains. Each chain has four links.

1. Detail or device: what the poem does (a metaphor, a repeated word, a stanza break).
2. Quotation: the exact words.
3. Function: what the device does to meaning (transfers a trait, emphasises an idea, marks a shift).
4. Effect: what that shows about the poem’s idea or what the reader is led to feel or understand.

A paragraph usually contains two or three such chains, all pointing the same way, which together defend the claim.

Choosing a claim about a poem

A good claim about a poem:

• says something about what the poem does or shows (the speaker’s attitude, how a contrast develops, what a metaphor reveals),
• is specific enough to be defended with a few lines,
• is not simply a topic (“the poem is about reading”) or a fact (“the poem has fourteen lines”).

Try the sentence frame: In this poem, [device or feature] shows [what the poem says or the speaker feels].

Quoting lines of poetry

• Quote exactly, including capitals, spelling and punctuation as in the poem.
• Quote briefly. A phrase or one line is usually enough.
• Show line breaks with a forward slash and a space on each side: “Then felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken”.
• Build the quotation into your sentence so that it reads smoothly.
• Use the present tense for what the poem does and refer to “the speaker”, not the poet.

Worked example 1: a paragraph about a public-domain sonnet

John Keats wrote “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” in 1816, after reading George Chapman’s English translation of Homer. The text below is from the Project Gutenberg edition of The Golden Treasury.

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Step 1: Read and decide what the poem does. The first eight lines describe the speaker’s reading as travel. The sestet (last six lines) begins “Then felt I” and offers two comparisons for the moment of hearing Chapman’s Homer. The final line is “Silent”.

Step 2: Choose a claim. Keats presents discovering Chapman’s Homer as an experience of wonder so great that it ends in silence.

Step 3: Build three chains.

Device or detail	Quotation	Function	Effect
Metaphor: reading as travel	“travell’d in the realms of gold”	Makes books a place to journey through, and “gold” gives the territory great value	Prepares the reader for an experience of arrival
Shift signalled by “Yet” and “Till”, then “Then”	“Yet did I never breathe its pure serene / Till I heard Chapman speak”	Marks the change from not knowing Homer’s world to entering it	Gives the discovery a moment
Similes of discovery	“like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken” and “like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes / He stared at the Pacific”	Transfer the astonishment of discovering something new, one cosmic and one geographical	Makes the speaker’s reaction as vast as these discoveries
Final line	“Silent, upon a peak in Darien”	The last word-picture is of silence, after “out loud and bold”	Awe leaves no words

Step 4: Write the paragraph.

Keats presents the discovery of Chapman’s Homer as an experience of wonder so great that it ends in silence. The octave sets up reading as travel: the speaker has “travell’d in the realms of gold”, but has “never breathe[d] its pure serene” until he hears Chapman “speak out loud and bold”. The shift at “Then felt I” introduces two similes of discovery: the “watcher of the skies” when “a new planet swims into his ken”, and “stout Cortez” who “stared at the Pacific”. Both compare the speaker to someone seeing something wholly new, so his reading is as significant as an astronomical or geographical discovery. The last line, “Silent, upon a peak in Darien”, sets silence against Chapman’s “loud and bold” voice, which suggests that the experience was so overwhelming that words fall away.

Step 5: Check. The first sentence is a claim. The quotations are short, accurate and embedded. Each chain ends in an effect (“as significant as an astronomical or geographical discovery”; “words fall away”). The paragraph names the speaker and uses the present tense. One quotation has a bracketed letter to fit the grammar; the change does not alter the sense.

Worked example 2: revising a weak paragraph (original poem, written by Marlbridge)

Inventory

We count the cups: eleven, one with a chip
my mother said she would not throw away
because the chip was where my brother drank.
The clock has stopped, as clocks do when you look.
We label things as we were taught:
Keep. Sell. Keep. Sell. Keep.
The house, relieved of weight, begins to ring
like a bell no one has struck.

A student draft reads:

The poem is about clearing a house. They count cups and label things. There is a simile at the end. It shows the house is empty and the speaker is sad.

Step 1: Diagnose.

Sentence	Problem
“The poem is about clearing a house.”	A topic, not a claim
“They count cups and label things.”	Summary; no quoted evidence
“There is a simile at the end.”	Names a device; no effect
“It shows the house is empty and the speaker is sad.”	A vague conclusion that is not linked to any detail

Step 2: Decide a claim. The poem shows that clearing the house turns the family’s memories into items to be sorted, while the emptiness left behind makes the loss audible.

Step 3: Build the chains.

1. Detail: the chipped cup. Quotation: “one with a chip / my mother said she would not throw away / because the chip was where my brother drank”. Function: the specific reason for keeping the cup gives an ordinary object a personal history. Effect: the items to be sorted are packed with memory.
2. Device: the clipped list of labels. Quotation: “Keep. Sell. Keep. Sell. Keep.” Function: the one-word sentences are brisk and repetitive, in contrast with the long, tender sentence about the cup. Effect: the practical task flattens feeling into a routine.
3. Device: the simile. Quotation: “begins to ring / like a bell no one has struck”. Function: an empty house echoes, and a bell is meant to be struck; here the sound comes without a cause. Effect: the loss is made audible after the objects are gone.

Step 4: Write the revision.

The poem shows how clearing a house turns memories into things to be sorted, until the emptiness itself becomes audible. The speaker notices a cup with “a chip / my mother said she would not throw away / because the chip was where my brother drank”, a detail that gives an ordinary object a personal history. By contrast, the instruction “Keep. Sell. Keep. Sell. Keep.” is clipped and repetitive, flattening feeling into routine. Once the house is “relieved of weight”, it “begins to ring / like a bell no one has struck”, a simile that turns the empty rooms into sound without a cause, so that the loss is heard after the objects have gone.

Step 5: Check. The revision has a claim that says what the poem shows, three embedded quotations (with slashes at line breaks), a contrast between the long sentence and the clipped list, and a link in the last sentence. The tone is analytic and the tense is present.

A self-assessment table

Question	Yes / partly / no
Does my first sentence state a claim about what the poem does or shows?
Is each piece of evidence a quoted word or line from the poem?
Are quotations exact, brief, embedded, and marked with a slash at line breaks?
Does each chain end in an effect on meaning or on the reader?
Have I named the speaker and used the present tense?
Have I removed summary and unsupported labels such as “sad”?

Strong and weak statements

Weak	Why it is weak	Stronger
“The poem is about loss.”	A topic	“The poem shows loss becoming audible once the objects have gone.”
“There is a simile, which makes the poem better.”	Names a device; evaluates	“The simile ‘like a bell no one has struck’ makes the empty house echo with a sound that has no cause.”
“The speaker is sad.”	A label	“The clipped ‘Keep. Sell. Keep.’ flattens feeling into routine, which suggests that grief is being managed by task.”

Common misconceptions

• “A paragraph about a poem should list every device.” Choose the ones that best defend the claim and explain them.
• “Naming a device is analysis.” The effect is the analysis.
• “Quotation marks around the lines are enough.” The quotation also needs a link to the claim.
• “The paragraph should paraphrase the poem first.” Summary wastes time. Start with the claim.
• “The poet is the speaker.” Refer to “the speaker”.
• “Longer quotations are safer.” Long quotations hide the words you mean to discuss.

Where this leads

Try the practice questions, then use the checklist and revision notes. This topic closes Unit 2. Take the Unit 2 diagnostic and then the Unit 2 review. In Unit 3 the paragraph grows into a thesis, commentary and line of reasoning: see From claim-and-evidence paragraph to defensible thesis.