The Meaning of the Poem

The Meaning of the Poem

this Paper focuses on your interpretation of the meaning of the poem.

THIS IS THE POEM!

“What Do Women Want?”
BY KIM ADDONIZIO
I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
……………..

2. The paper has a short introduction paragraph, which includes

a lead-in line to get the paper started [don’t start the first line of the paper with the thesis]; this is just a general statement of the topic of the paper,
the title of the poem [in quotation marks],
the name of the poet,
the thesis [your opinion about what the poem means or its major theme or idea].
3. The thesis makes one arguable point about the theme (point, meaning, your interpretation) of the poem. Your thesis is arguable; that is, it takes a stand that other people who read the poem might disagree with but one which you support. The thesis is your interpretation of a theme, point, or meaning of the poem.

4. The body of your paper contains several paragraphs. In the body paragraphs, you will want to

thoroughly explain all your ideas,
make every sentence clear and understandable to the reader
not use any contractions,
avoid using first (I, me, mine, our…) or second (you, your, you are…) person point of view in a formal college essay.
use the literary present tense of verbs to talk about your poem. For example, the boy walks through the house, not “walked”; or the poem is about a young boy, not “was.”
5. Support your ideas in your body paragraphs with quotations from the poem. Put quotation marks around the quotations. After the quotation, put the line number in parenthesis. Be sure to lead into the quotation before giving the quotation. After the quotation tell what the quotation suggests to you or give your interpretation of the quotation. Link this interpretation to the topic sentence of the paragraph and to the thesis of the paper to show how your interpretation of the quotation supports the topic sentence of the paragraph or the thesis of the paper.

6. Since this is a paper about a poem, be sure to use the forward slash between lines of the poem that you quote. When you quote, quote accurately. Use ellipsis to indicate any omissions you have made from the original quotation. Use square brackets to enclose any change you make in the original. If your quotation from the poem is long (more than 4 lines of the poem), display the quotation as a long quotation.

7. End the paper with a short conclusion paragraph that echoes or mirrors the thesis in some way and that wraps up the entire paper.

8. Type an outline page (with at least A’s and B’s under each Roman numeral), the paper itself, and a Work Cited page

9. Type the words “Paper 2” somewhere on the title page of your paper.

10. Give your paper a title that is NOT the title of the poem. Type the title in the center, on the first page of your essay.

11. Assigned length: 500-750 words.

12. Underline the thesis in your introduction paragraph.

13. Submit your paper to Assigments for this online course. (More on that later)