Literary analysis
Compose a literary analysis of either one poem, or, if you prefer, two poems in which you analyze how the poem is written, thinking about aspects that go into poetry and also doing a small amount of research to add further insight.
Your goal by the end of the essay should be to come to new insights about the poem or poems, something about how the author(s) develop themes or use line breaks or metaphors, or any number of other options, using specific evidence and a small amount of research to explain your point.
Research here could mean looking up biographical information on the poet to see how that adds to your understanding of the poem(s), or you might look up interviews with the poet(s), or look up references being made in the poem(s), or seeing what other scholars have said about the poem(s) in book reviews or scholarly articles, etc.
Remember, analysis does not mean simply summarizing the piece(s), although you may need to summarize parts or all of your selected poem(s). Instead, analysis is based on close examination of the way the poem is constructed to gain new insight into its meaning.
In order to accomplish this, you should first select the poem or poems you want to write about. Basically, you have two options for how to approach this assignment.
