Students often find poetry too difficult and they give up before they understand.  They need to learn how to read step by step to discover levels of meaning.  By using footnotes, you can uncover various layers of the poem.  Footnotes show the skill of “temporary guessing” until deeper understanding is reached.  The explanation at the end summarizes the guesses into a final interpretation.

 

  1. Begin with a “rough reading” to get the basic concept.
  2. Take notes on poetic elements that need detailed thought. 
  3. Refine your interpretation by adding closer observation.
  4. Make temporary guesses about meaning.
  5. Review guesses and decide on interpretation.
  6. Summarize the theme.

 

 

Signpost by Robinson Jeffers

 

1

Civilized, crying how to be human again[1]; this will tell you how

2

Turn outward, love things, not men, turn right away from humanity,

3

Let that doll[2] lie.  Consider if you like how the lilies[3] grow,

4

Lean on the silent rock[4] until you feel its divinity[5]

5

Make your veins cold[6], look at the silent stars[7], let your eyes

6

Climb the great ladder out of the pit of yourself[8] and man

7

Things are so beautiful, your love will follow your eyes[9];

8

Things[10] are the God, you will love God, and not in vain

9

For what we love, we grow to it[11], we share its nature.  At length

10

You will look back along the stars’ rays and see that even

11

The poor doll humanity[12] has a place under heaven[13].

12

Its qualities repair their mosaic[14] around you, the chips[15] of strength

13

And sickness[16]; but now you are free[17], even to become human,

14

But born of the rock and the air[18], not of a woman.


 

[1] Sounds like the theme; I want to see what he means.  It doesn’t make sense because I’m already human.

[2] My guess is that doll is a symbol of people or of childhood.

[3] Lilies symbolize either nature or beauty. 

[4] Silent rock is a symbol.  I guess it means quiet, peaceful or stable.

[5] In dictionary, divinity means to be inspired or influenced by god.

[6] Cold veins probably means to be dead, but that doesn’t make sense if the poem is about being human.  I’m confused; is the poem about living or dying?

[7] "Silent stars" reminds me of silent rock in line four, but this time it feels more hopeful.  Is silence part of the theme?

[8] I close my eyes to see this picture.  I see a ladder going deep into my self.  I think this line compares my self to a pit in the ground.  How is this related to being human?

[9] If love follows my eyes, does that mean that my senses are more important than my feelings?

[10] Things could be cars and phones, or things like the sun and the moon?  I’m not sure yet.

[11] We grow to it has the same meaning as the line love will follow your eyes.  I guess this means we need to follow nature.

[12] Poor doll humanity now makes more sense than just the world doll in line three.

[13] A place under heaven means that god takes care of us.

[14] Dictionary says a mosaic is a picture made by laying small pieces of coloured stone into mortar.  It sounds like a puzzle.

[15] Chips?  Like potato chips?  No way.  Maybe this relates to the mosaic in some way.

[16] Sickness is opposite the word strength in line twelve.  Maybe together these represent the cycle of life.

[17] I understand free, but what makes me free?  Why do I need to become human when I already am human?

[18] Now he talks about things from nature again.  It seems like I am a child of nature, not just my mom’s child.

 

 Making Decisions

 

This difficult poem requires eighteen footnotes to get vocabulary and general understanding.  Review the poem and footnotes to judge each of the temporary guesses.  Then, decide on the most likely interpretation of each line.  Here are some samples of a student’s second level of understanding:

 

“As I read again, the doll (line 3) is now clearly a metaphor for human life.  I realize that he wants to contrast this with the lilies (3), rock (4), and stars (5) of nature.  Together, these mean that I need to stop thinking so much about myself, and start learning from nature.”

 

“Now I see that nature is compared to god through symbols of nature.   Ohh, the cold veins and silent stars (line 5) make more sense now.  I should not pay attention to my human body, but I should focus on the spiritual power outside from the stars.  That’s what he means to climb out of myself and my body (6).

 

 

“I’m still confused.  Does he mean that god and nature are the same (lines 8 and 9)?    It seems like he means we grow by looking outside of ourselves, looking at the stars instead of just at society.”

 

“Ok, now the mosaic (line 12) makes sense.  It means that god has taken all the pieces of the world like rocks, lilies, stars, and people to create a mosaic.  I see. We need to understand the whole puzzle of nature and the world and then we will correctly perceive that we are part of nature.”

 

Summarize

 

The final step is to summarize your footnotes, guesses and decisions about meaning.  Write down your comprehension from each section of the poem.  This leads to a short, exact statement of theme:

 

“We become human again when we turn away from society and our selves. 

Then we turn to god and nature to discover the deep truth of life.”

 

Try this technique for yourself on the next difficult poem that you meet.  With patience and several readings, even the most difficult poems can be interpreted.