Tell me about a poem you don’t understand at 1st, 2nd, or even 3rd reading of it.(I Never Saw A Moor – Poem by Emily Dickinson) Then show me how the poem begins to make more sense to you as you apply poetic elements and concepts explained or modeled in the Norton textbook. Sometimes we read a poem several times, and can feel it but not understand how the poem is accomplishing its impacts. Studying the poem more closely (through explication and close reading) often amplifies how and why the poem is working as it does. Your sense of surprise or discovery may be experienced as you spend more time within the poem, and start to see all the specific choices the poet has made in its making. The purpose of this assignment is to allow you to do a close reading of a poem of your choice, applying what you have learned from the Norton so far with your own innate experience of surprise, or discovery, as a reader. This paper assignment option is basically a chance to do a close reading, or explication of one poem.

Explicate the poem. How does the poem work, and how does it do its work? Refer to the guidelines offered in the beginning of the book. Examine and analyze the specific techniques this poem uses, and what impact they have as you begin to grasp the poem better. Your paper should be approximately 1500 words (3 pages).