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American Poets of the 20th Century

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How to Analyze Poetry

Context of the Poem
Style of the Poem
Title of the Poem
Repetition in the Poem
Opening and Closing Lines of the Poem
Passage of Time in the Poem
Speaker of the Poem
Basic Details of the Poem
Culture
Fantasy versus Reality
Mood and Tone of the Poem
Themes of the Poem
Rhythm of the Poem
Use of the Senses in the Poem
Imagery in the Poem
Language of the Poem
Supplemental Materials
Drawing Conclusions

The Poets

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950)
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)
Robert Frost (1874–1963)
Amy Lowell (1874–1925)
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967)
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
H. D. (1886–1961)
Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
Marianne Moore (1887–1972)
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965)
John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
Jean Toomer (1894–1967)
Louise Bogan (1897–1970)
Hart Crane (1899–1933)
Allen Tate (1899–1979)
Sterling Brown (1901–1989)
Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
Countée Cullen (1903–1946)
Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
John Berryman (1914–1972)
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965)
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000)
Robert Lowell (1917 — 1977)
Richard Wilbur (1921– )
James Dickey (1923–1997)
Denise Levertov (1923–1997)
A. R. Ammons (1926–2001)
Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997)
W. S. Merwin (1927– )
James Wright (1927–1980)
Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
Adrienne Rich (1929– )
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
Amiri Baraka (1934– )
Wendy Rose (1948– )
Joy Harjo (1951– )
Rita Dove (1952– )
Cathy Song (1955– )

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The Poets

Adrienne Rich (1929– )

1. Compare Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Joy Harjo, Wendy Rose, James A. Wright, and June Jordan as witnesses of wrongs done to women. Determine which poets best characterize Rich's belief that "Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know you know."

2. Discuss Rich's views of female individualism in "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law."

3. How does the speaker in "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law" achieve a personal transformation? What is this transformation?

4. What does the wreck symbolize in "Diving into the Wreck"?

5. Discuss the downward motion in "Diving into the Wreck" in terms of the speaker's personal growth. How does this downward motion compare to that found in "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law"?

6. Explain Rich's belief that women themselves must reshape the pattern of female existence to excise old expectations of "the Victorian Lady of Leisure, the Angel in the House, and also of the Victorian cook, scullery maid, laundress, governess, and nurse," which she characterized in Of Woman Born.


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