Reading Poetry What Is Reading Poetry? Why Learn How to Read a Poem? Tips for Reading Poetry Use the Strategy Practice the Strategy Feature Menu

Reading Poetry

What Is Reading Poetry?

Why Learn How to Read a Poem?

Tips for Reading Poetry

Use the Strategy

Practice the Strategy

Feature Menu

Reading Poetry

Reading poetry is different from reading novels or notes from your friends.

Many poems are puzzles. You have to figure out what the poet wants you to see or understand.

What is reading poetry?

Reading Poetry

Reading poetry requires close attention to every word—and sometimes every punctuation mark.

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What is reading poetry?

Reading Poetry

Why learn how to read a poem?

When you learn how to read a poem, you can

• understand how word choice affects meaning

• see how punctuation affects rhythm and meaning

• realize how important rhythm is in language and literature

• learn to recognize all kinds of rhymes

Reading Poetry

Why learn how to read a poem?

Imagery, figurative language, and symbol are especially important in poetry.

When you learn how to read a poem, you learn reading skills that will help you recognize images, figures of speech, and symbols in prose, too.

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Reading Poetry

The Bells HEAR the sledges with the bells, Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody

foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars, that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, . . .

Edgar Allan Poe


Look at the title. Think about the image or images it creates.

Reading Poetry

Read the poem silently. Pay attention to punctuation.

HEAR the sledges with the bells, Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody

foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars, that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the tintinnabulation that so musically

wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, . . .

Pause briefly at commas and semicolons.

Pause longer at periods or other end marks.


Reading Poetry

If there’s no punctuation at the end of a line, don’t pause.





Reading Poetry

Read the poem aloud. Feel the rhythm of the poem.




It’s often easier to make sense of a poem when you hear how it sounds.


Reading Poetry

Read the poem a third time. Think about images that come to mind as you read.





Reading Poetry

Look for vivid verbs that help you see the action.




Look for comparisons that help you see something in a new way.


Reading Poetry

Poets pay special attention to word choice. What unusual words does the poet use?





Reading Poetry

Think about the poem’s meaning. What does it say to you? Does it relate to your life in any way?



wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, . . .[End of Section]


Reading Poetry

Use the Strategy

As you read “The Sea,” stop at each open-book sign and think about what you have just read.

These questions will help you learn how to use reading poetry as a reading strategy.

Stop and

think.

Answer the

question.

Example [End of Section]

Reading Poetry


Read “The Sea” aloud. Pay close attention to the punctuation.

The sea is a hungry dog,Giant and gray.He rolls on the beach all day.With his clashing teeth and

shaggy jawsHour upon hour he gnawsThe rumbling, tumbling stones,And “Bones, bones, bones!”The giant sea dog moans,Licking his greasy paws.

Reading Poetry

Practice the StrategyThe sea is a hungry dog,Giant and gray.He rolls on the beach all day.With his clashing teeth and

shaggy jawsHour upon hour he gnawsThe rumbling, tumbling stones,And “Bones, bones, bones!”The giant sea dog moans,Licking his greasy paws.

How does this comma affect the way you read the first two lines?

Why do you think there’s no punctuation at the end of this line?

Reading Poetry

1. Continue reading the poem. Notice where there is and is not end punctuation.

Now, read the poem again, pausing at the end of each line instead of where there is end punctuation.

What happens to the meaning of the poem?


Reading Poetry

2. Poets often use vivid verbs to help create an image. List the verbs in lines 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11 of “The Sea.” How do these verbs help sustain the image of the dog and help you visualize the sea?

3. This poet wants you to see the sea as a hungry dog. How might a hungry dog behave? Why didn’t the poet compare the sea to a well-fed dog? What image of the sea would that create?

Reading Poetry

4. Look through the poem at all the ways the sea is compared to a dog. See if you can answer the following questions.

a. How would the sea “roll” on the beach?

b. What would its “clashing teeth and shaggy jaws” be?

c. When the sea dog is “licking his greasy paws,” what is the sea doing?

Reading Poetry

d. In line 13, what does the poet imagine the sea spray is?

• When the sea dog “howls and hollos,” what is the sea really doing?

• What sound of the sea is compared to the dog’s quiet snore?

Reading Poetry

5. Poets use onomatopoeia to create sound effects that echo the meaning of the poem. Three words in “The Sea” that sound like the actions they represent are clashing, roars, and rumbling. Find three more examples of onomatopoeia in “The Sea.”

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Reading PoetryReading Poetry

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Reading Poetry What Is Reading Poetry? Why Learn How to Read a Poem? Tips for Reading Poetry Use the Strategy Practice the Strategy Feature Menu