Short Essay Guidelines
MLA Format
500+ words, double spaced, not including Works Cited page
Works Cited page
Proper in-text citations
For the short essay assignment, you need to choose one of the questions below. Your paper should consist of your original response and analysis. Please do not include biographical information on the poets or use outside sources. Also, please note that your paper will be submitted through Turnitin, a plagiarism detection tool.
1. Compare Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” (Links to an external site.) with Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to the Artichoke.” (Links to an external site.) Your analysis should focus specifically on Neruda’s use of figurative language (metaphor and simile, in particular). How does the speaker in each of the poems feel about the object the poem praises? How does the poet’s use of figurative language contribute to the poem’s tone?
2. Compare “Dog/Buddha” (Links to an external site.) by Frank Paino with “The Dogs at Live Oak Beach, Santa Cruz” (Links to an external site.) by Alicia Ostriker. What role do sensory details play in each of the poems? How do sensory details and figurative language, in particular, contribute to the tone of each of the poems? From what point of view is each poem told?
3. Compare Dorianne Laux’s “Kissing Again” (Links to an external site.) with Tim Seibles’ “First Kiss.” (Links to an external site.) Your analysis should focus specifically on the tone of each poem. How do Laux and Siebles describe kissing? What role does sound play in Laux’s poem and what role does figurative language play in Seibles’ poem?
4. Compare Nickole Brown’s “Pepsi” with Nickole Brown’s “For My Grandmother’s Perfume, Norell.” Both poems feature Nickole Brown’s grandmother Fanny. What do we learn about Fanny from the two poems? How does the poet’s use of figurative language contribute to the tone of each of the poems?
5. Compare Thomas Hardy’s “The Convergence of the Twain” (Links to an external site.) with David Slavitt’s poem “Titanic.” (Links to an external site.) How do the words used to describe the Titanic and its passengers differ in the two poems? How does the tone of Hardy’s poem differ from the tone of Slavitt’s poem?
6. Compare Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers” (Links to an external site.) with Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem.” (Links to an external site.) How does Dickinson describe hope and how does Hughes describe deferred dreams? Your analysis should focus specifically on the poets’ use of figurative language (metaphor and simile, in particular). How does the tone of Dickinson’s poem differ from the tone of Hughes’ poem?
