These could be moments that made sense to you, profoundly confused you, or something in between. Circle, highlight, underline, or otherwise note specific moments that caught your attention as you were reading, and reflect on why you noticed them.Read the poem or excerpt of poetry silently, then read it aloud (if not in a testing situation).

Preparing to write the explicationīefore you try to tackle your first draft of the explication, it’s important to first take a few preliminary steps to help familiarize yourself with the poem and reveal possible avenues of analysis. This handout reviews some of the important techniques of approaching and writing a poetry explication, and includes parts of two sample explications.

Writing an explication is an effective way for a reader to connect a poem’s subject matter with its structural features. Poetry Explications What this handout is aboutĪ poetry explication is a relatively short analysis which describes the possible meanings and relationships of the words, images, and other small units that make up a poem.