In order to differentiate between different sections of a poem, you should separate and label each individual component. Even the simplest poems include at least one line and one stanza, and most poems include multiple lines and stanzas. Number each line, then identify the “paragraph breaks” where there is an empty space between two lines. These are stanza breaks. Label each stanza with Roman numerals. Numbering and labeling lines and stanzas respectively breaks the poem down into identifiable portions that you can refer to as you complete your analysis.
After numbering and labeling the different parts of the poem, identify the poem’s rhyme scheme. Some poems use an obvious rhyme scheme in which the last word of one line rhymes with the last word of the next line. Some alternate rhyming lines. Others include internal rhymes, or words from the middle of a line that rhyme with words from the middle of a second line. Some poems have no discernible rhyme scheme at all. These types of poems are free verse poems. Label the rhyme scheme by assigning each line that rhymes with another line with the same letter. For example, the second line of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” ends with “lore,” which rhymes with the last word in the fourth and fifth lines (“door”) and the last word in the sixth line (“more”). You would label each of these lines “A,” as they are the first rhyming lines in “The Raven.”
Identifying meter can be tricky as it requires a certain degree of poetic reading proficiency that can take time to master. Nonetheless, if you’re able to determine where to place emphasis on the words of a poem’s lines as you speak them, you can reveal clues about the significance of certain moments, phrases, or ideas in the poem. While it can help to understand the technical terms of different meters, it is not totally necessary for dissecting a poem. Instead, focus on reading a line as naturally as possible, and the poetic rhythm will emerge. For example, in “To Autumn,” John Keats places emphasis on every other word in the line, “To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells,” revealing the significance of the nouns and verbs of that line.
Once the poem is sufficiently marked up in terms of meter, rhyme, lines and stanzas, it’s necessary to shift gears and focus on the language of the poem. Most poets are conservative in their word choices, so it becomes important to identify the specific choices they have made in terms of subjects and actions. In “To Autumn,” for example, Keats uses strong actions (“plump” and “swell”) and equally vivid subjects (“gourd” and “shells”). Underline subjects or nouns and circle actions or verbs. This will allow you to compare and contrast these terms, as well as ask questions about how specific subjects can undertake certain actions (how does a gourd swell? How does a shell plump?).