Poetry, like any other form of creative work, is there to express the author's thoughts, opinions, and feelings. There are vast strategies that can be applied to help readers make sense of it. Which method you use relies heavily on the poem you are reading. Different poems call on different aspects of poetry, ways of reading, and the relationships between feelings, images and meaning. It is the purpose of this essay is to discuss elements of analysis that are designed to help readers identify the way poetry conveys meaning. Looking at the poem "The Black Art," we will discuss how the piece achieves it's effects for the audience.
             To begin reading a poem, I believe that it is imperative to identify major indicators of meaning, this includes aspects of setting and topic, as well as the voice of the person dominating or directing your reading. This can be achieved by looking for a clue as to the identity of the narrator, is it coming from a feminine or masculine point of view? "The Black Art" comes from a feminine point of view, the narrator is clearly female. The first stanza refers to women, "a woman who writes feels too much," this stanza is ended with the key line "Dear love, I am that girl". The use of singular prose "I" tells the reader the author is speaking of herself. As a female reader the author has established a common ground with the opening line. Women are commonly referred to, as emotional beings while men are rational. Therefore as women we would naturally all have material to write about. For myself this allows me to identify with the author.
             The words used in a poem and their literal meanings are not the only way to decipher what the poem is about. The diction, intonation and nuance of the phrases in the stanzas can convey to the reader the attitudes to it's subject. A reader can take the words for face value or take a closer look to see if the author has meant these words to have a different connotat...