Several things go into reading a poem. A poem is something you need to gently unpick apart to properly digest it and understand what the poet is trying to address.
1.) Readout loud to yourself: It seems bizarre, but you’ll start to pick up from the smallest to the biggest details in a poem when you read aloud to yourself.
2.) Relate to the poem: In some ways, for you to fully grasp the message the poet is trying to address, you need to find something implied within the poem that you can “relate” to. You have to come eye-to-eye with a poem, you have to meet it on its terms and not necessarily yours. With that, you’ll see what image the poem is trying to build in your head.
3.) Try to separate the poet from the poem: Even though the poet may be speaking based on their own experiences, try not to pinpoint the speaker’s idea of the poem and the poet to be balanced. Most poets try to build a different persona that doesn’t essentially relate to their own, so fixate your attention on the speaker’s tone rather than the poet themselves.
4.) Talking back to the poem: This allows you to get a better understanding of things like what’s happening, what the poet is trying to imply, what is the tone of this following passage, etc.
5.) Text and Context: Over time, poems can build different meanings, there’s not a set meaning for all poems. Poems are open to interpretation the majority of the time, so open your eyes to several meanings and not just one.
6.) Re-read: Sometimes poems need to be read more than once for you to fully grasp it’s meaning. Don’t just breeze through it, read it over and over again.
7.) Prioritize It: Make sure there’s nothing distracting you so it’s just you and the poem – and your attention is fixated on the poem only.
8.) Line’s End: Figure out where every line ends as poems usually have an unusual structure and thus figure out where every line comes to a stop so you can genuinely digest it.
9.) Annotate: Whenever you come across something that implies a certain message or uses a specific poetic device, take note of it! Also, take note of the things you don’t understand.
10.) Ask yourself questions: What does the poet want you to understand from this? What is the poet trying to say from this? How does this make you feel?
