Intro to Literature

Intro to Literature

Poetry Paper

Your assignment is to write a two to three page paper following the prompt on page 592 in your book: “8. Read three or more poems by the same poet and discuss the features they have in common.” (Your book says five; I have changed it to three.)

I’d like you to choose Emily Dickinson or Langston Hughes, as your book includes many poems by each of these authors (see chapter 16).

Step One: Choose one of the above poets and read his or her poetry.

Step Two:  Select three poems by one author that have some connections between them. Formulate a thesis about what these connections say about your poet. For example,

The poems “Wildflower,” “Homework 101” and “The Dusk is a Morning Fog” by Angela Morris all have to do with loss.

Step Three: Write a paper in which you prove your thesis (see step two). Please follow the handout about citing poetry in MLA style.

Step Four: Include a Works Cited page.

Note (From the Purdue OWL site):

More than one work by an author

If you have cited more than one work by a particular author, order the entries alphabetically by title, and use three hyphens in place of the author’s name for every entry after the first:

Burke, Kenneth. A Grammar of Motives. […]

—. A Rhetoric of Motives. […]