Poem Analysis Peer Review

Rujian Zhou

5/23/2016

Peer Review For Yubin

Your poem analysis Hold Fast to Dreams is a thoughtful analysis, which shows her deep understanding about her poem “Dreams”. As the name shows, the poem is about encouraging people to keep chasing their dreams.

Firstly, you have a very attractive introduction. Especially the first sentence, also known as the hook of an article “Have you ever had a time when you just … and dark?”. This first sentence does not only show a question to attract readers but also connect the essay to the poem. In this way, the first paragraph goes better and better. There is a thesis statement about your understanding of the poem, a connection to your analysis paragraphs which follow the introduction, and the necessary information about your poem in the introduction. I always think to write an introduction which like this is very difficult, so I am very impressive by your introduction. In total, it is a well-done introduction that I, personally like it very much.

Then, you have two great understandings about the poem, one is about the surface meaning, and the other is about the deeper meaning of the poem. You separate these two meanings into two paragraph which helps readers to understand. In these two analysis paragraphs, there are examples of the used of poem methods in the poem, such as metaphor. As well as the detailed explanations from your own. I really like your example about the “eclipse”. Because of it, I can understand your ideas about keeping dreams. It is really good to have an example like this in the analysis paragraph, it not only show your deeply understanding of the poem but also let all the readers who read your analysis get to know your ideas. Great Jobs.

From the other hand, even though there are a lot of detailed analyses in the paper, I think there can be more analyses. Because your poem is not very long, so you can try to analysis it from sentence to sentence. This will provide your analysis more details as well as more words. The examples of the poems like “broken-winged bird”, “barren field” and “hold fast to dreams” are all support your analysis very much. So if there are more examples from the poem, your analysis will be more detailed, and believable.

More importantly, even though you have a great understanding of your poem’s meaning, you did not show your understanding of the structures, such as rhyme, repetition, and emotions in the poem. You have some of them in the essay, but they are not enough if you want to complete a better essay. In my opinion, the “meaning of the poem” parts of your essay is great, you only need to add some of your opinions about those structures in your poem, then your analysis part will be perfect.

In conclusion, this is a very well written and well-thought essay, you have done a great job so far. My advice to improve this essay is adding more information about the poem, and more analysis about the structures of the poem. Besides these, it is a very good essay that also help me improve myself. There are a lot of things I can learn from this essay, especially the introduction. I believe it will be a wonderful essay on Friday! :)