Title
What is its relation to the poem?
Is it a straightforward, simple title or does it have symbolic
possibilities?
Does it recall any allusions?
Epigraph
(Introductory few lines, set apart from the beginning of the poem often a
literary quote that inspired the poem)
If any, what is its relevance to the poem as a whole?
Of what allusions does the epigraph remind the reader?
Speaker/Persona
Is there a speaker/persona distinguishable from the poet?
Who is the speaker?
What is the speaker like?
(Do not assume that because there is no character speaking the words of the
poem that the voice is necessarily the poets own, and the experience
necessarily part of the poets personal history.)
Setting
Is there a more or less definite location for the action of the poem?
If so, what is it like?
How is the place appropriate for the action?
How does the play develop theme?
What other literary significance does the play have?
Is there a specific time of occasion?
(Often its impossible to give a definite date modern, for example:
sometimes you can be somewhat detailed about context - wartime,
Christmas Eve, death of a cousin, etc.)
How is the time or occasion important to the poem?
Does the poem deal with past, present or future? Or a combination?
Tone
(Attitude of the poet towards the subject, the audience, or the poet
him/herself)
Is the tone constant? Varying?
Identify the tone, taking into account its possible complexity; for
example: serious, solemn, humorous, mocking, satiric, reverent,
profound, casual, playful, fanciful, clam, intense, excited, ironic,
bitter, formal, melodramatic, sentimental or a mixture of several.
Is the poem didactic? (Placing more weight on teaching or preaching
than on poetry as experience)
Purpose
(Reason for writing the poem)
Enlightenment? Entertainment? Observation? Prediction? Tribute?
Eulogy? Warning? Other?
Structure, Pattern, Form
Does the poem have any obvious or major divisions?
If the divisions are not immediately apparent, upon close examination
does the poem fall naturally into parts?
Is the poem written in stanzas? If so, does the stanza pattern vary? Is
it repeated?
If the verse is rhymed, what is the basic pattern is it consistent
throughout the poem? Does the rhyme detract from the meaning?
How does the metre support the meaning?
Does the poem have a specific shape?
Other Techniques
Anecdotes
Deliberate lack of logical transitions
Withheld identification of place or event
A type of poetic in-joke