One of the reasons the ‘Dissecting Ariel’ series is helping develop my poetry so much is because it forces me to engage with poems I would normally skip over. Issue is, if I only close-read from one poetry collection, then I limit my ability to read wide, and risk learning how to analyse Plath, not how to analyse poetry.
My solution to this dilemma is to alternate: week $2n,$ I study the next Ariel poem, and week $2n+1,$ I study a poem from anywhere else. Could be poetryfoundation’s poem of the day, or a collection I own, doesn’t matter. The analysis in these will also be more casual and less structured, to allow a separation between poetry analysis and “writing a good essay.”
At the time of writing this, I have a Plath close read still in my drafts, three weeks late—hopefully this new structure encourages me to maintain consistency.
That will be all… shoo!
(how does one end a post like of this nature?)