Sample Question

The language of a poem is often that one thing compared to another. In the work of at least two poets you have studied, explore how poets have made their subjects come alive through different means of comparing them.

In the poem I memorized by Emily Dickinson, this would be a perfect question for it.  She talks about this nobody compared to a somebody.  "Im nobody! Who are you?"  "How dreary to be somebody."  She is clearly comparing the two which are the nobody and the somebody.  She's talks positively when she finds this other person who is also a nobody.  She talks about how terrible it is to be somebody, "How public like a frog."  I liked the way she separated the two stanzas to compare the two points of view.  I like how she made it short and simple and you could clearly see why she would rather be a nobody than a somebody.  The detail in the second stanza really shows how terrible it is to be somebody.  For example, "To tell ones name the livelong June, To an admiring Bog."  

The other poem I memorized was the "Tell all the truth but tell it slant-"  She compares telling the truth vs the truth hurting them.  For example, "The truth must dazzle gradually, or every man be blind."  Have the truth be good or else it can come out terribly wrong.  Dickinson also explains how you should tell the truth with "infirm delight"  but also "tell is slant."  This means tell the truth with "dazzle" but don't tell too much of it where it will not ruin the delight surprise.  Dickinson clearly does not want people to know the full truth but not to a point where it will hurt them.