Meta Poetica

8 steps to responding to your poem (especially if it's a poem about poetry):

1) Reading the poem out loud is a good way to start, go ahead!

Ars Poetica #100: I Believe
by, Elizabeth Alexander


Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry

is where we are ourselves
(though Sterling Brown said

“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”),
digging in the clam flats

for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?


2) What can we expect from this poem? These poems are ones that talk about poetry and writing poem, the genre is free verse and from first glance we can see that it is written in couplets

3) Breaking down the poem will help us look at it from a syntax perspective.

I. Poetry, I tell my students, is idiosyncratic. 
II. Poetry is where we are ourselves (though Sterling Brown said "Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”),
digging in the clam flats for the shell that snaps, emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
III. Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, God in the details, the only way to get from here to there.
IV. Poetry (and now my voice is rising) is not all love, love, love, and I’m sorry the dog died.
V. Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice, and are we not of interest to each other?

Now we can see easily that each sentence starts with the word 'poetry' she is very clearly listing all the things that poetry is in as many metaphors as she can to convey her point. Luckily she is speaking in a modern vernacular so it isn't hard to understand or connect with what she is saying. Even though it is only five sentences she packs a lot into most of them, using a lot of commas to string things together making it seem more and more like stream of consciousness.

4) What words or references don't we know: Sterling Brown was a South African poet and literary critic in the 20th century.

5) Who: the author is speaking to to reader
Where: no specific setting, but settings are used in metaphor (ex. "overhear on a bus")
When: again no setting, but implies a teaching profession
What: we are talking about what poetry is, and to an extent, why it matters

6) Now we have some questions to address:
Why does this poem matter, what does it mean? Well, it addresses the very question of poetry and whether or not it matters, as a way of expressing ideas, perhaps. A way of expressing the little things in life that seem to hold greater meaning? Or perhaps asking and answering human questions, just as this poem ends with the question of if we do care to learn of other people's experiences.

7) And now what you've all been waiting for!... it's time to talk about form (woot! woot!)
Since we already know that this poem is in couplets, but encompasses mostly long sentences, what does this mean? While I think this lends itself to stream of consciousness, I think it the spaces and the enjambments help to keep the pace quick and not bogged down by a lot of text. For example:
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.

The enjambments and spaces in between make it seem like this sentence in one, hurried breath. Each end seems to act as some sort of cliffhanger, so that you stay engaged in what comes next.

8) As this is a free verse poem at times follows poetic conventions and then goes it's own way when it seems fit. There isn't much by way of rhyming, and the audience is addressed in parenthesis giving it a very personal feel. Even the couplets are abandoned at the end. This seems to be aiding the idea that poetry is what you want to be. It is an expression of human experiences that can be as personal as a dog's death or as impersonal as some dirt in the corner, but it means something in the end, because it is a way of sharing experiences with other human beings.