Questions to Ask About a Poem
For a student, a teacher or a reading group sitting with a poem, any poem, and wanting to get past 'I liked it' or 'I did not get it'. The 53 questions follow the order a careful reading takes: first impressions, the speaker and the situation, words and images, sound and form, the turn and the ending, then what it all adds up to. The note under each one is for whoever is asking: how a thin answer differs from a strong one, and which follow-up sends people back to the lines.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
First reading
What is the first thing you noticed about this poem?
Why ask it
Take every answer without correcting it: a strange word, the shape on the page, a line that sounded like a song. A first noticing is an observation and not yet an interpretation, so nobody can be wrong, and the things several people noticed usually mark where the poem is working hardest.
What happens in the poem, in plain words?
Why ask it
Ask for a retelling in two or three sentences before anyone says what it means. A good answer is literal: someone walks home in the snow, someone watches a parent's hands. If the group cannot agree on what happens, settle that first, because many arguments about meaning turn out to be arguments about the situation.
What did the title make you expect before you read a line?
Why ask it
Put it to the group ahead of the first reading if you can, and jot the guesses down. A title that names a form, a place or an occasion sets up a certain kind of poem, and any gap between that promise and what the lines deliver gives people something real to talk about in the first two minutes. The guesses that turn out wrong are the ones to keep for the end.
How did the poem make you feel, and which line did that?
Why ask it
The second half is the one that counts. 'Sad' on its own ends the conversation, while 'sad at the line about the empty chair' gives everyone a place to look. If someone felt nothing, ask where they lost interest, which is just as useful to know.
What does it sound like when you read it aloud?
Why ask it
Have two people read it and listen for where they differ: a pause one took and the other skipped, a word one leaned on. Those differences are small interpretations already. Do not skip this with a group that says it does not get poetry, because a poem that sits flat on the page often wakes up in a voice.
What does the poem look like on the page before you read a word?
Why ask it
A long thin column, a solid block and lines scattered across white space each set up a different expectation. It makes a good opener with younger students because it needs no reading at all. Come back to it later and ask whether the shape suits what the poem says.
Which words did you have to look up?
Why ask it
Look them up together and check for an older or a second meaning, since a poet may have picked the word for both. A reader who says 'none' on a difficult poem is often guessing, so make the dictionary the normal move by reaching for it yourself first.
Which line confused you most?
Why ask it
Starting from the confusion is better than hiding it. When several people name the same line, the difficulty belongs to the poem and may well be deliberate. When one person names a line the rest found easy, a neighbor can usually clear it up in a minute.
If you could keep only one line, which would it be?
Why ask it
The choices overlap more than the reasons do. One reader picks for sound, another for a picture, another because the line says the point outright. Write the chosen lines up where everyone can see them and you have a map of what the room responds to.
What changed on your second reading?
Why ask it
Put this to the room after a silent second read. A useful answer names something specific that shifted, such as a line that was a joke the first time and is not one now. If nothing changed for anyone, give the group a narrower thing to read for, like the verbs or the last word of each line.
Speaker
Who is speaking in the poem?
Why ask it
Push for evidence from the lines: roughly how old, in what mood, one person or a 'we', what the speaker knows and does not know. A thin answer is 'a man' or 'someone sad', and a strong one reads like a casting note, such as an adult remembering being nine. Say 'the speaker' in your own questions and the group will pick up the habit.
Who is the speaker talking to?
Why ask it
It might be a lover, a dead parent, God, a vase, the reader or nobody at all. Look for 'you', for commands and for questions in the text. Once the listener is named, ask whether that listener could answer back, since a poem addressed to someone who cannot reply reads very differently.
Where and when is this happening?
Why ask it
Collect the clues: season, time of day, indoors or out, present tense or memory. Some poems give almost nothing, and that is an answer too. A poem with no setting is often taking place inside someone's head.
What has just happened before the first line?
Why ask it
Many poems begin after an event: a death, a quarrel, a walk, a letter arriving. The group has to infer it, which makes this a fair test of close reading. Accept two or three versions and ask which lines support each.
What does the speaker want?
Why ask it
To persuade, to remember, to be forgiven, to stop thinking about something. Once the want has a name, the rest of the poem tends to read as an attempt to get it. Follow up by asking whether the speaker has it by the last line.
How does the speaker feel about the subject, and does that feeling hold all the way through?
Why ask it
This is the tone question without the word 'tone'. Ask for an adjective and the phrase that earned it, then ask again for the final stanza. Admiring at the start and bitter by the end is a finding. One adjective for the whole poem often means only the opening was read with care.
Is the speaker the poet, and how would we know?
Why ask it
See what the poem itself offers: a real name, a date, a place you could find on a map, a dedication under the title. Without one of those, treat the 'I' as a voice the poet built, the way you would a narrator in a novel. A group that insists it must be the poet can be asked what would change in their reading if it were not.
Do you believe the speaker?
Why ask it
Some speakers boast, plead or talk themselves into something, and the poem lets you see past them. Ask for the line where the doubt began. If everyone trusts the voice completely, try one stanza aloud in a sarcastic tone and see whether it survives.
What does the speaker avoid saying?
Why ask it
Look for the subject the poem circles: a name never given, a loss mentioned once and dropped. A strong answer points to the exact spot where the speaker changes the subject. Go gently when the poem is about grief, because someone in the room may be carrying their own.
Words and images
Which images can you see, hear, smell, taste or touch?
Why ask it
List them by sense. A poem that is all sight and then offers one smell is drawing attention to that smell. Nearly anyone can answer this correctly, so hand it to the reader who has not spoken yet.
What is being compared to what?
Why ask it
Find each simile and metaphor and name both halves, then ask what the two share and where the likeness breaks down. The breakdown is usually the interesting part. Love compared to a rose brings thorns and a short season along with it, whether the speaker meant them or not.
Is anything that is not a person treated like one?
Why ask it
A wind that argues, a house that waits up, a river that forgets. Name the human trait the thing has been given and whose it might be, since a speaker who calls the sea angry may be reporting on their own mood. Then try the reverse case, a person described as an object, which tends to say something harsher.
Which word surprised you, and what would the ordinary word have been?
Why ask it
Swap the ordinary word in and read the line again. The difference you hear is what the poet's choice was for. Plain-looking poems tend to hide their decisions in the verbs, so go through those before agreeing that nothing is unusual.
Which words or images come back more than once?
Why ask it
Circle them. A repeated word seldom means quite the same thing the second time, because of what has happened in between, so ask how each return differs. A refrain that eyes slide past on the page deserves to be read aloud every time it comes.
Is any object in the poem standing for more than itself?
Why ask it
Ask what in the text suggests it: repetition, a place at the end, more attention than a plain object would get. Be wary of an answer that would fit any poem, such as the bird meaning freedom. The better reading lets the bird stay a bird as well.
Does the poem sound like someone talking, or like someone making a speech?
Why ask it
Everyday words and formal ones create different speakers. Listen for the spot where the level shifts, a slang word in a solemn poem or a grand word in a casual one, because that is rarely an accident. Students who have not met the term 'diction' can answer this without it.
Which words carry a feeling beyond their dictionary meaning?
Why ask it
Compare 'house' with 'home', or 'thin' with 'gaunt'. Pick three loaded words from the poem and ask what each one brings with it. Expect disagreement, since associations depend on who is reading, and say so aloud instead of ruling on it.
Does the poem point to a myth, a religious story, a piece of history or an earlier poem?
Why ask it
Somebody may catch a reference the others miss, so ask before you explain. Then test it: does knowing the source change a line, or is it only decoration? Proper names, and anything in italics or quotation marks, are the first things to check.
Which line could mean two things at once?
Why ask it
Have one person argue each meaning from the words. Resist picking a winner early, because a poem can hold both, and a line break often creates the second sense by pausing in the middle of a phrase. The last line is a good place to hunt, because a phrase that faces two ways does the most work there.
Sound and form
Does it rhyme, and what does the rhyme do?
Why ask it
Mark the pattern with letters, then look at which words are paired, since a rhyme ties two meanings together. Check for near rhymes and for rhymes inside the lines too. If there is no rhyme at all, ask what holds the lines together in its place.
Is there a regular beat, and where does it break?
Why ask it
Tap it out on the desk before reaching for terms like iambic. The find worth having is the line that stumbles or speeds up, and what the poem is saying at that moment. A group that hears no beat is probably reading free verse and can listen for where the stresses crowd together.
Why does this line end where it does?
Why ask it
Choose one break. Read the line as a unit, then run it straight on into the next and hear what is lost. A break can leave a word hanging with one meaning that the following line revises. 'It looked right' is a fair first answer, so follow it by asking which word lands in the strong last position.
Which sentences run on past the end of a line, and which stop where the line stops?
Why ask it
Count the sentences in the poem. People are often surprised to find only two or three. A line that ends where its sentence ends tends to feel settled, and one that spills over can feel hurried or breathless, so see whether the spilling starts at a moment when the speaker loses composure.
How is the poem divided into stanzas, and what changes at each gap?
Why ask it
Treat each stanza like a room and ask for a three-word label for it. If the labels make a sequence, you have the poem's outline. A poem in one unbroken block has made a choice as well: ask what it would lose if you cut it in three.
Is it written in a set form, and does it keep the rules?
Why ask it
Sonnet, haiku, villanelle, ballad and limerick each come with expectations about length, pattern or subject. Count the lines, and look the form up if nobody knows it. The place where the poem bends a rule, a short last line or a missing rhyme, is where to spend your time.
Which sounds repeat inside the lines?
Why ask it
Read a stanza slowly and exaggerate the consonants. Hard sounds like k and t and soft ones like l and s give a line a texture, though be careful with any claim that a sound means something by itself. A sound pattern matters most when it links words whose meanings you would not otherwise connect.
What is the punctuation doing?
Why ask it
Dashes, missing periods, a single question mark, capitals in odd places. Try reading a stanza while obeying only the punctuation and ignoring the line ends. A poem with no punctuation hands the pauses to the reader, so ask two people where they breathed.
Turn and ending
Where does the poem turn?
Why ask it
Look for 'but', 'yet' or 'so', a stanza break, a change of tense, or a switch from describing something to addressing someone. Ask each person to put a finger on the line, then compare. Two candidates is normal, and arguing between them is close to arguing about what the poem means.
What is different after the turn?
Why ask it
Name the before and the after in a word each: question and answer, memory and present, complaint and acceptance. A thin answer says the mood changes. A strong one says what the speaker now knows, admits or wants that was missing from the first half.
Read the first line and the last line together: what happened in between?
Why ask it
Set the two side by side. The distance between them is the poem's journey in miniature, and some poems come back to their opening words with a new meaning attached. Handy when time is short and you need the shape of the whole thing fast.
Does the ending close the poem or leave it open?
Why ask it
A closed ending clicks shut with a rhyme, a statement or a finished image. An open one stops on a question or a picture and leaves the rest to you. Establish which this is before asking whether anyone liked it, since readers who wanted an answer tend to mark an open ending down.
Cover the last two lines: what did you expect to find there?
Why ask it
Do this before the group has seen the ending if you can, or ask people to recall their first guess. An ending everyone predicted is confirming something, and one nobody saw coming is revising it. Then go back and look for where the surprise was prepared.
What does the title tell you that the lines do not?
Why ask it
Cover the title and list what you would no longer know: who 'you' is, where the speaker is standing, what day it is. Some titles carry a fact the poem depends on, and some pull against the lines, like a cheerful name over a bleak poem. For an untitled poem known by its first line, ask what title the group would give it and what that would commit them to.
Meaning
What is the poem's subject, and what does it say about that subject?
Why ask it
This is the theme question, and the two halves have to be kept apart. 'Death' is a subject, and 'grief makes ordinary objects unbearable' is something a poem says about it. An answer that stops at one word is unfinished, and one that sounds like a greeting card has probably left out the poem's doubts.
Which lines are the evidence for your reading?
Why ask it
This is the follow-up to every interpretation offered. A reading that can point to three places in the text stands, and one resting on a feeling about the whole thing needs more work. In a classroom it is also the bridge to writing, since a claim plus a quoted line is the skeleton of a paragraph.
Which line does your reading not explain?
Why ask it
It is the hardest test to put to your own interpretation. Most readings have a line they would prefer to ignore, and saying which one stops the group forcing the poem into a neat box. If a reading leaves out half the poem, treat it as a first draft.
What two things are pulling against each other in this poem?
Why ask it
Wanting to stay and needing to leave, a calm voice and a violent subject, a tidy form and a messy feeling. Once the pair is named, check whether the last stanza settles the argument or leaves both sides standing. A reading that finds no tension anywhere may have taken the speaker's side without noticing there was another one.
Why is this a poem and not a paragraph?
Why ask it
Write the poem out as prose and read it back. Whatever goes missing, the pauses, the weight on the end words, the pattern, is what the form was doing. It suits a group that reads only for the message.
Does knowing when it was written, and by whom, change any line?
Why ask it
Bring in the date and the poet's circumstances late, and ask which specific lines read differently now. Context that changes no line is trivia. Context that changes one, such as learning that a war was on, has earned its place in the discussion.
How does this poem compare with another one on the same subject?
Why ask it
Pairing two poems makes each one's choices visible: one rhymes and one does not, one speaks to the dead and one speaks about them. Ask what each can do that the other cannot. Leave it for another day if the group has not finished with the first poem.
Does any line take you back to something in your own life?
Why ask it
Leave this until the reading is done, and let people pass. A personal connection makes a poem stick, but offered too early it replaces the poem with the reader's own story. Once someone has answered, ask what the poem's version has that their memory does not.
What would you still ask the poem?
Why ask it
Collect what remains unsolved, written down, one question per person. A group with nothing left to ask has probably settled too soon. The list doubles as a set of essay prompts or the opening of the next session.
Has your first reaction held up?
Why ask it
Go back to what people said in the first five minutes. Someone who called the poem cold may now hear restraint, and someone who loved it may find it thinner. Changing your mind is the reading doing its work, and a first reaction that has survived an hour of scrutiny is now a judgment.
How to question a poem, alone or with a group
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the first question
Read it twice, once aloud
Read the poem silently, then have someone read it aloud at an unhurried pace, then leave a full minute of quiet. Most of the questions here cannot be answered from one pass. With a long poem, read the whole thing once and then work on a section of twenty lines or so.
Put a copy and a pencil in every hand
A poem on a shared screen is hard for anyone but the presenter to mark. On paper, readers can circle repeated words, draw a line where they think the poem turns and number the stanzas, which gives everyone a way to say 'line nine' and be followed. Number the lines before you start if the copy does not have them.
Settle the literal before the figurative
Agree on who is speaking, to whom and what happens before anyone proposes what the poem means. The First reading and Speaker groups are there for that. A discussion that jumps straight to theme tends to come back and do this work anyway, with less patience.
Choose, do not march
Nobody needs to ask every question of one poem. Let the poem pick: lean on the form questions for a sonnet, the speaker questions for a dramatic monologue and the line-break questions for free verse, and take only a couple from each of the other groups.
Classroom, reading group or on your own
One poem in a class period
A workable order for forty minutes: two readings and a first noticing from everyone, ten minutes on speaker and situation in pairs, ten on one feature of language or form that you have chosen in advance, then the turn and the ending as a whole class. Keep the last five minutes for one Meaning question answered in writing, so that every student commits to a reading and not only the ones who talk.
With younger or reluctant readers
Lead with the questions that have no wrong answer: what the poem looks like, what you noticed, what you can see or hear in it. Leave the terms out and ask for the thing itself, 'can you tap the beat' instead of 'what is the meter'. Supply the vocabulary afterward, as a name for something they have already found.
In a reading group with no teacher
Pick one person to read aloud and another to keep the group on the page by asking 'which line?' whenever a claim floats free. Without a leader, groups drift toward whether they liked the poem, so hold that verdict until the Meaning questions. Short poems work best: one page gives everyone time to speak about the same lines.
Reading alone
Write your answers in the margin or a notebook, because an answer you only think stays vague. Work one question from each group, then put the poem away and come back the next day for the second-reading question. For an exam or an essay, the evidence question and the line your reading cannot explain are the two that do the most to sharpen an argument.
Where poem discussions go wrong
Hunting for the hidden meaning
Treating a poem as a riddle with one answer locked inside makes readers anxious and makes the leader the keeper of the key. Ask what the poem does and how, and meaning arrives as a description of that. If someone asks what it 'really' means, send the question back as: what do the words say, and what do they suggest?
Spotting devices and stopping
'There is alliteration in line four' is an observation, not a reading. Each time a device is named, ask what it does at that point in the poem. If nobody can say, drop it and move on. A list of techniques with no effects attached is the weakest kind of answer, in a discussion and in an essay alike.
The poet's life as the answer key
Biography is tempting because it feels like fact. It can open a poem up, but it can also shut a discussion down when one detail about the poet is used to overrule what the lines say. Read first, bring the context in afterward, and keep only what changes a line.
Anything goes
The opposite mistake is to accept every reading as equally good to keep the room comfortable. A poem supports several readings, not all of them. The polite test is always the same: show the line. Readings that cannot do it tend to be withdrawn by the person who offered them, which is better than being told.
The leader explains
Once the person at the front gives their own reading, the group stops producing readings and starts guessing at that one. If you are leading, hold yours until the end or keep it to yourself, and answer a direct 'but what do you think?' with the line you find hardest.
After the talk
Claim, line, because
To turn discussion into writing, have each person write one sentence that makes a claim about the poem, quote the line that supports it and add a 'because' that explains how the line does so. Three of these in a sensible order are most of an analytical paragraph.
Read it once more
Close by having the poem read aloud again, by a different voice from the first. After the questions it will not sound the same, and hearing it whole again puts back together what the discussion took apart.
Keep the open questions
Write down what the group could not settle and leave it unsettled. Coming back to the same poem a week or a year later with that list is one of the better ways to notice how your own reading has changed.