Poetry Paper #3

AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Ms. Gamzon

Major Paper #3: Poetry Project

Students will select an American poet from the list provided. They will be asked to read a

collection of poems by the poet, a biography or compilation containing biographical information

about the poet, and a work of critical analysis by an established scholar about the poet analysis

by an established scholar. The 5-7 page paper with MLA citation should contain introductory

biographical information about the poet (1-2 pages), and then a close reading and analysis of

two of the poet’s major poems. The analysis of the poems should focus on the use of rhetorical

devices such as voice, form, figurative language, and other poetic devices such as imagery,

rhyme and meter. In doing scholarly research, students should also be able to cite commentary

on the poems from published scholars. Internet sources must be kept to a minimum and cited

properly.

List of poets to choose from:

John Ashberry

Margaret Atwood--Breasia
anne Sexton--Serena

W. H. Auden

Amiri Baraka

Elizabeth Bishop

Anne Bradstreet--Frieda

Gwendolyn Brooks

Lucille Clifton

Billy Collins--Jahde

Hart Crane

E. E. Cummings--Cameron

Emily Dickinson--Rose

Rita Dove--Brian

T. S. Eliot--Ethan

Robert Frost--Honesty

Jane Hirschfield

Henry W. Longfellow--Katherine Fuss

W. S. Merwin

Marianne Moore

Mary Oliver--Olivia
Sylvia Plath--Alyssa

Ezra Pound

Theordore Roethke

Carl Sandburg--Bayleigh

William Stafford

Wallace Stevens

Mark Strand

Richard Wilbur

C. K. Williams

James Wright