Brittney Grubb

English 2100

6 May 2011

Reflecting On Writing About Poetry

If I have ever had difficulty writing a paper, it was this one. Through all of the

types of literature that we studied in class, poetry was definitely the hardest for me. As

soon as I read that on the syllabus at the beginning of the year I began dreading it a little,

actually, because I knew I wasn’t very good at it. Through analyzing the pieces as much

as I did, though, and editing my explications as much as I have, I feel as though I have at

least an organized, structured, persuasive argument, if not a totally, nailed-it, convincing

one. I definitely know that this will be the area I need to work on the most as I continue

to analyze pieces of literature, and I’m excited to see how much I’m able to grow through

as I read more of it and critics’ reviews on it.

Well, as I did in the first piece, I was forced to change my central idea, because

not only was this read incorrectly by me (I can always count on that happening to me..),

but it was also much harder. Fitting 5 different elements into one 5-6 page paper? How

on earth was I supposed to get that much information into that little of space? So, of

course, I exceeded my boundaries, as I did in the first assignment, but tried to keep it as

concise as I could. So, anyway, I changed my idea from “how the elements worked to

explain the themes of Dream Variations, Formula, and Cross” to “how the elements

worked together to explain one central theme, freedom, in Dream Variations, I, Too, and

Cross.” I changed the poem Formula to I, Too, because, once I realized it all had to be

about one theme, not the individual theme of each, I didn’t feel as though Formula quite
met the requirements I needed to really make a good paper. Formula seemed much to

abstract, and there wasn’t as much depth to it as there was in I, Too, from my own

personal reading of it, and so I thought it would fit more effectively.

Most of the notes I took for the final revision were on my original assignment,

instead of my revised assignment, just because I had them both opened at the same time

and was working quite hastily on both to come up with one, central, stronger paper. I

took out all of the wordy explanations of what each of the elements meant; my first paper

seemed way more caught up in the elements themselves than it did in the theme of

anything. I noticed that at first, and brushed it off a bit, but once I got a peer review

saying the same thing, I took initiative to change my focus to the stories more. My final

revision is still organized by each element, because I really feel as though I’d go insane if

I tried to organize it by points and just throw in a bunch of random elements in each

paragraph. Kudos to anyone who effectively did that in their paper, I bet it’s completely

awesome, I just couldn’t make mine sound good like that. So I continued in my same

general organizational path. I also got compliments from one peer review about how

nicely organized it was, so I knew I was on the right path with that.

I made a note that I didn’t like the way that my use of speaker was very good, but

in the end I grew fonder of it. That certainly doesn’t mean it needs to be there, or is even

good, but I liked the way it fit, so I left it. I loved how ridiculously cramped my paper got

by the time I started to talk about the poem I, Too. Absolutely crazy. I made sure I went

back and stretched out the elements, gave each of them some space to grow and be

understood, instead of just all in one paragraph. I have no idea why I did that originally.
 I noticed that I left a lot more of my second assignment as it was, and just

tweaked things, than I did in the first assignment. Certain things like, “The brief pause

that this pairing pattern creates allows for an easily distinguished before and after effect

of the way the author has changed in time. This portrays the theme of regret from past

decisions, and leads into the confusion that it is causing him present day, as the reader

discovers later in the text.” (page 2, paragraph 2) ended up fitting in nicely as I

summation of the point I was making in the paragraph. I had bits and pieces of really

good points all throughout the piece, but had so much loose interpretation and empty

explanations that I didn’t have a very strong paper to begin with. So, with my few well

structured sentences and points, I tried to really run with them and focus my paper more

on them. Each of my paragraphs mostly stayed the same, with some additions made to

make the points stronger and stand out more. The exact changes I made are mostly in

comments on my your (Dr. Hall) revision of my paper, as I figured that would be the

easiest way to tell exactly when and why I did everything exactly as I did it.

Finally, I extended my final paragraph so that it wasn’t so short and weak. I left it

the same, for the most part and just added to it to further explain in the only one of two

sentences that I originally had.