During the first six weeks of the semester, each of my Introduction to Criticism students composed three “close readings” of three poems of their choice. Most poems (per my suggestion) were chosen from Poetry Foundation‘s online archive.
Below is a complete list of the poets and poems students chose to analyze, along with links to texts of these poems. Next to the titles, I’ve included “Paper #1,” “#2,” or “#3” to indicate which round of close readings the poems correspond to. By chance, some students chose to analyze the same poem, which is why a few of the entries have more than one “Paper” designation.
Why compile this list?
It’s instructive and enlightening to visualize the intellectual labor of students and to remind oneself of their efforts, no matter the particular skill of individual students.
This list expresses just a fraction of their work this semester.
Our work.
- Alexie, Sherman. “How to Write the Great American Novel” Paper #2
- Angelou, Maya. “Human Family” Paper #1
- Angelou, Maya. “A Plagued Journey” Paper #1
- Angelou, Maya. “Phenomenal Woman” Paper #3
- Arnold, Matthew. “Dover Beach” Paper #1
- Bilgere, George. “The Forge” Paper #2
- Bradstreet, Ann. “Prologue” Paper #1
- Cole, Norma. “Black Flowers” Paper #2
- Deniord, Chard. “In the Grass” Paper #3
- Diaz, Joanne. “Psychomachia” Paper #3
- Dickinson, Emily. “There’s a certain Slant of light, (320)” Paper #1
- Dietz, Maggie. “Love Song” Paper #2
- Donne, John. “The Canonization” Paper #1 | Paper #2
- Donne, John. “Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud” Paper #1
- Dunn, Stephen. “Propositions” Paper #3
- Frost, Robert. “Good-bye, and Keep Cold” Paper #3
- Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken” Paper #3
- Gay, John. “To a Young Lady, With Some Lampreys” Paper #1
- Hoagland, Tony. “How It Adds Up” Paper #2
- Hoagland, Tony. “Sweet Ruin” Paper #2
- Holmes, Sr., Oliver Wendell. “The Chambered Nautilus” Paper #2
- Housman, A.E. “The Laws of God, the Laws of Man” Paper #2
- Keats, John. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” Paper #3 | Paper #3
- King, Amy. “Perspective” Paper #2
- Laurentiis, Rickey. “Swing Low” Paper #2
- Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “Nature” Paper #3
- McDaniel, Jeffrey. “The Quiet World” Paper #3
- McKay, Claude. “If We Must Die” Paper #2
- Mali, Taylor. “Undivided Attention” Paper #1
- Michelson, Richard. “Green Bananas” Paper #2
- Moore, Clark. “Strikes and Gutters” Paper #3
- Morley, Hilda. “And I in My Bed Again” Paper #1
- Mueller, Lisel. “Love Like Salt” Paper #3
- Niakliaeu, Uladzimir. “A Script” Paper #1 | Paper #3
- Oswald, Alice. “Body” Paper #1
- Owen, Wilfred. “Smile, Smile, Smile” Paper #2
- Plath, Sylvia. “Morning Song” Paper #2
- Poe, Edgar Allan. “Annabel Lee” Paper #1 | Paper #3
- Poe, Edgar Allan. “Dream Within a Dream” Paper #2
- Purpura, Lia. “Solitude” Paper #1
- Roethke, Theodore. “The Waking” Paper #1
- Roripaugh, Lee Ann. “Happy Hour” Paper #2
- Plath, Sylvia. “Fever 103º” Paper #1
- Plath, Sylvia. “Lady Lazarus” Paper #1
- Shakespeare, William. Macbeth Paper #1
- Shapiro, David. “Tattoo for Gina” Paper #1
- Tennyson, Alfred Lord. “Tears, Idle Tears” Paper #2
- Twemlow, Nick. “Wide Awake in a Field of Deadbolts” Paper #3
- Vuong, Ocean. “A Little Closer to the Edge” Paper #2
- Whitman, Walt. “I Hear America Singing” Paper #3
- Whitman, Walt. “O Captain! My Captain!” Paper #1
- Whitman, Walt. “O Me! O Life!” Paper #2
- Wordsworth, William. “The Solitary Reaper” Paper #1
- Wordsworth, William. “We Are Seven” Paper #3
- Wyatt, Sir Thomas. “My Lute Awake” Paper #3
- Yeats, W.B. “The Circus Animals’ Desertion” Paper #1
- Yeats, W.B. “A Meditation in Time of War” Paper #3
- Yeats, W.B. “To a Child Dancing Upon the Shore” Paper #3
Sketching a Present 