How to TPCASTT a poem

TPCASTT is a method of analyzing poetry that gives you a formula to work from when you’re trying to figure out what a poem means. It’s an excellent way to “cover the bases”, rather than just asking someone to tell what he/she thinks the poem might mean. Below is a description of what you should analyze in each step.

Title: Take a look at the title before you even read the poem. What could it mean? Sometimes, the title is very straightforward – that tells you a great deal about what to expect from the poem. Often, the title is somewhat cryptic in nature. That should tell you something about what to expect, too.

Paraphrase: What is the literal meaning of the poem? It’s difficult to get the figurative meaning of the poem if you can’t figure out the literal meaning.

Connotation: Here’s the meat of the analysis. What is the implied meaning, and how does the poet convey this meaning? (Hint: It does NOT simply mean “negative” or “positive” connotation.) What kind of literary things are going on in the poem? Think in terms of diction (word choice), syntax (sentence structure), imagery, symbolism, etc. Any literary device used in the poem fits under the connotation category.

Attitude: What is the tone of the poem? If you have trouble determining tone, start by deciding whether the tone is positive or negative, and then become more precise from there.

Shift: There is a shift of some sort in nearly every poem written. It might be a shift in tone, in subject matter, in meaning, in rhyme scheme – anything. Look for the shift, and then decide why the poet has a shift in that particular place.

Title: Take another look at the title. What does it mean to you now that you’ve analyzed the poem?

Theme: In a sentence, what is the theme? In other words, what statement about life is the poet making? Be careful: theme is difficult to nail down, and all too often students put down the subject matter instead of the theme.

Sample:  

To Have Without Holding
Marge Piercy 

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind 
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously, 
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.