A. Setting:
    1.Where is the poem taking place?  How do we know?
    2. Who are the characters?  How do we know?
    3. Is the speaker of the poem an observer or a participant?  How do we know?
    4. Is the reader of the poem an observer or a participant (addressed as "you")?  If someone is addressed as "you," is that someone other than the actual reader?  Do we hear or "overhear" the poem?  How do we know?
    5. What is the time of day or year? How do we know?
    6. Does the poem describe more than one  time or place? If so, why? If not, what are the different parts of the poem for?  Do they describe different aspects of the same scene or situation, raise different philosophical or religious issues. . . ?

B. Action
    1. Summarize the poem in your own words, as if someone had asked you, "In 25 words or less, what is this poem about?"
     2. How is the ending of the  poem related to the beginning?
    3. Are the events of the poem physical, mental, emotional?  Give examples.
    4. What seems to tie each part of the poem to the next part?  For instance, are they related logically? chronologically? associationistically? spatially?  Are they all alike?

C. Language
    1. What words in the poem recreate sensory experiences? (images)
    2. What words in the poem explicitly or implicitly compare something in the poem to something that is not actually there? (similes and metaphors)
    3. What words have significant connotations, that is, the meaning would be different or less if a synonym were substituted for the word chosen?
    4. Are there any sets of words that evoke similar emotions, refer to similar things (e.g., words for darkness, words related to a party, words that are associated with buying and selling), or are different forms of the same or similar words (variations of "not," for instance)?
    5. Are there any symbols? (A symbol is something that is itself, e.g. the special tree outside Oxford in "Thyrsis," but also points to a range of meanings (not just one single, simple meaning) beyond itself.)

D. (optional) Rhyme, meter, and other effects of sound.
    1. Does the poem have physical subdivisions?
    2. Are those subdivisions the same length?
    3.  Do words at the end of lines have the same ending sound (rhyme)?  What is the pattern?
    4. Do words within lines have sounds in common, such as the initial consonant sound, that creates sound relationships among the words?
    5. Do some words get special emphasis because they are at the end of the line?  Are some ideas surprising because they begin one way in one line and then turn out differently in the next?
    6. Do words and/or sounds within words sound like what is being described?
    7. Do the lines seem to be of approximately the same length, or do they vary in a pattern (e.g. long short long short)?  If so, when you read them aloud do they seem to fall often into groups of two syllables(one less important than the other--example "the man is handsome, tall, and strong", or three syllables (two unimportant, one important--example "galloping, hurrying, running a race with them")?  If so, the poem has a metrical pattern, as well as rhythm.  The actual rhythm is rarely exactly the same as the basic pattern; if it were, the poem would be sing-songy.  Occasionally a metrical pattern plays an important role in a poem, e.g., "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix."
   8. Does the poem sound like singing, speaking, thinking, or a mixture?  How do you know?