Instruction
Do an explication of this poem—following the instructions in the handout posted for this
week under “Required Background Reading.” If you don’t follow the steps in explicating
poems, it will be painfully obvious to your instructor, and you won’t receive credit for the
assignment.
In the process of explicating, be sure to answer the questions below. I don’t want to see
the answers to these questions; the answers to the questions should inform your
interpretation, so the answers are for you. Once you have examined the images, color,
sounds, and patterns of meaning in this poem, write 4 paragraphs giving a brief
interpretation of this poem.
If you want to see an example of a short explication and interpretation, I am
including the explication I did of “Golden Retrievals” below.
1. What is the poem literally saying?
2. What words are key to discerning meaning?
3. What images are key to discerning meaning? Color, images of nature, and so on.
4. What are the key metaphors you find in this poem?
5. How are the following words defined by a dictionary?
• ecstasy
• emaciated
• dissonant
• reverie
6. What does the title suggest about the meaning of the poem? Why is the poem
called “Joshua on the Road”?
Follow the instructions in the attached documents and complete an explication of the poem on the handout titled Joshua on the Road.