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Writer's pictureYejun C

A Guide to Analyze a Poem in Different Ways

Updated: Jan 13, 2022

I read three different poems and annotated in critical, inferential and literal. I made some connections between three poems and here is why i love those poems and how i annotated. Also there is a poem I wrote that is inspired by three poems, and the title is "Light".

The “Trees” is a light-hearted poem that Alfred Joyce Kilmer wrote in 1923. He used pronunciation tricks at the end of each sentence like see and tree pair, day and pray pair, to rhyme his poem. He used only two sentences per paragraph, and at the start of each paragraph, he used “A tree..” statements to rhyme his poem again. The author of this poem, Joyce Kilmer, says the trees are lovely unlike poems, and only God can make trees. I think the poem takes place where there are a lot of trees, like forests or woodlands.

In the second line, he wrote “A poem lovely as a tree.” I didn’t know why the word “poem” is in the sentence, but this was a clue. As I read, I found an answer to that question, which is that we can make a connection between that sentence and the second to last sentence. They both represent the trees are lovely, and better than poems because poems are made by fools.

In Trees, Joyce Kilmer uses the word “Tree” to represent not only trees, but every natural thing and nature is beautiful. The theme of this poem would be nature. He created a character “God” to explain and show that trees and nature are really important to us, and we should care about them. He wrote “poems are made by fools like me”, to represent that we should be humble.

This poem is connected to another poem called “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, because they both have pronunciation tricks at the end of each sentence. Also, they share the theme, nature. This poem has positive meaning about nature, but Nothing gold can stay has sad and negative meanings about nature.

Nothing Gold Can Stay is a short poem by Robert Frost, written in 1923 and published in The Yale Review in October of that year. His poem says nature's first green is gold, but only so an hour. Like the poem “Trees,” he also used the same pronunciations at the last word of each sentence to rhyme his poem. This poem has only one paragraph with 8 sentences, and I think the poem takes place where you can see flowers or golds.

In Nothing Gold Can stay, the fourth sentence gives the clue to readers that nothing gold can stay, which means nothing can stay in gold. This sentence is connected to the next three sentences, because the next three sentences represent some examples. Also the fourth sentence shares the meaning “Nothing is forever,” with the last sentence, so they are connected too.

In Nothing Gold Can stay, Robert Frost uses the first four sentences to represent nature’s beauty, but he wrote the last four sentences to represent nothing gold can stay. He made two sections by dividing the first four sentences and last four sentences to rhyme the poem and give the reader an immersion.

This poem is connected to the poem “Fire and Ice”, they both have negative and sad meanings. Also they both have only one paragraph, and they are not really long.


Fire and Ice is a poem written by Robert Frost, and published in 1920. Like other two poems, he also rhymes with the words that end with ire or ice like fire and ice. In his poem he says the fire is for desire, and ice is for hate and destruction. The theme of this poem is hatred and power of emotions, and this poem would take a place where you can see fire, ice or the end.

In Fire and Ice, at the third line, the author of this poem gives us a clue. He wrote the word “desire,” to make a connection with the word "fire." When you think about the fire, you can imagine the words like enthusiasm and desire. Also, it works the same at the sixth and seventh line. In those lines, the author gives us clues, and they are the words “hate” and “destruction.” They are both connected to the word ice because when you think about the ice, you can imagine some words like coolness, and hate.

In Fire and Ice, Robert Frost uses two types of energy to represent two types of words. Fire stands for greed, desire or passion, but Ice stands for coolness or hate. If the world is unbalanced with fire and ice, the world will end because fire also means hatred and ice also means destruction.

This poem is connected to the poem Nothing Gold Can Stay, because they both have the word “but” in the middle of the paragraph, to split the paragraph into two groups. This poem is about the Fire and Ice pair, Nothing Gold Can Stay is a positive and negative pair.



Light by Yejun C


A biggest light,

who is always looking for us.

A brightest light,

who makes the colour of earth.

A glorious light,

only one in the world.

A light in coldest place,

but has the warmest heart.

A light who knows me better than anyone,

but a light who keeps the silence.

A light always believe us,

even if we don’t believe the truth.


The “Light” is a nature themed poem that I made. This poem is almost the first poem ever I created and has only one paragraph with 12 lines. I used A light… statements to rhyme the poem. The "light" is the sun in this poem, but I didn’t write the light is the sun in this poem, because I wanted readers to think about their light. For example, someone’s light of their life can be their family or their teacher, or even it can be god.

The theme of this poem is love, because readers should think about their light. Also, the theme of this poem can be nature, like “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer and “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost, because the sun represents nature and this poem shows the beauty of the Sun.The literary device can be anaphora, because my poem repeats the “A light” statements.


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