For the Poetry Analysis Essay, you need to write an essay of at least 750 words that helps readers understand one poem from our packet (your choice). All of the poems in our packet this semester are good poems that will be interesting subjects for essays. All of the poems seem to tell us something important about life. Make sure to read the poem repeatedly, looking up any words that you do not understand and doing your best to understand the meaning conveyed in the poem.

You can assume that your audience has read but has not studied the poem you are analyzing, so you should not simply summarize the literal level of the poem. Instead, you should give your audience an interpretation of the poem, some insightful explanation of the poem that will help your audience understand its meaning and significance.

Your essay should follow the conventions of MLA documentation. After each quotation from the poem, include a parenthetical citation of the line number(s), for the quotation, "like this" (12-13). Do not cite the page number(s).

The general citation for your poems from the Poetry Foundation looks like this:

Yeats, William Butler. "Easter, 1916." Poetry Foundation, http://www.poetryfoundation.org.