What kinds of questions are asked for the poetry essay?
Let’s look at several typical questions that have been used as prompts for the poetry essay on the AP Literature exam in the past: • How does the language of the poem refl ect the speaker’s perceptions, and how does that language determine the reader’s perception? • How does the poet reveal character? (i.e., diction, sound devices, imagery, allusion) • Discuss the similarities and differences between two poems. Consider style and theme. • Contrast the speakers’ views toward a subject in two poems. Refer to form, tone, and imagery. • Discuss how poetic elements, such as language, structure, imagery, and point of view, convey meaning in a poem. • Given two poems, discuss what elements make one better than the other. • Relate the imagery, form, or theme of a particular section of a poem to another part of that same poem. Discuss changing attitude or perception of speaker or reader. • Analyze a poem’s extended metaphor and how it reveals the poet’s or speaker’s attitude. • Discuss the way
