Instructions Now it is your turn to select a poem and work through it line-by-line, considering its meaning and the way in which poetic devices work to convey or enhance that meaning. This discussion post will be a warm-up for the formal essay about the same poem that you will write in Assignment 3. Step 1: Read "Poetry Isn't Elsewhere" by Peter Babiak. Be sure to include this citation in your works cited. As you will see, Babiak is convinced of the immediacy and relevance of poetry. He offers many statements about how poetry works and why it can be valuable to readers. If you can, print the essay or download it, and highlight or underline the passages from Babiak's essay that speak to you the most. Step 2: Choose a claim from Babiak's essay that intrigues you. For example, Babiak closes his essay with strong claims about language: "... it's not us who speak language, it's language that speaks us. It structures everything about us: our sense of time and space, our relationships and our selves, and obviously our sense of place, too" (Babiak, 5). You may use part of this claim for the rest of this assignment, or you can use another claim of your own choosing. To prepare for identifying claims in Babiak's essay, it's a good idea to review the section on Writing a Thesis in Unit 2, Topic 2, Section 2.2. Step 3: Find a poem that will allow you to apply, or test out, Babiak's claim. For example: If you are intrigued by the claim that language "structures our sense of time and space," you could look for a poem that addresses time and space, and look for the ways that poem uses language to structure the reader's sense of time and space. To find a poem, you have two choices: Select a poem from the 20th-Century Poetry and Poetics anthology used in this course. Remember, you are not allowed to pick a poem discussed in the course. However, you can pick a poem by one of the authors we have studied, as long as that poem has not been included in the units you have completed. Visit the Poetry Foundation website, which contains a wealth of poetry and poetry-related sources, and select the Poem of the Day. Please make a note of the date you visit the site. Step 4: Identify the poem. At the top of your post, provide the name of the poet and the title of the poem. If you selected a poem from the course anthology, also include the page numbers for the poem . If you selected a poem from the Poetry Foundation website, copy and paste the entire poem into the discussion board. Also include the link and the date on which the poem was featured as Poem of the Day. (The poem is not included in your word limits.) Step 5: Explicate the poem. In one or two paragraphs with a total of about 250 to 300 words, introduce the claim from Babiak that you are using to focus your response. Introduce the poem to your fellow students and show how the poem connects to the idea from Babiak's essay. Identify poetic devices and show how they convey meaning. You may also pose specific questions to your classmates about aspects of the poem that puzzle you in order to spark discussion. Post your explication to the Poetry discussion forum. Step 6: For your secondary posting, visit a fellow student's post, read the poem and their response, and add your own comments or feedback to those of the original posting. Be sure to comment not only on the poem itself but also on your classmate's post. Note that in this discussion forum, your goal is not to evaluate classmates' work (as you might do in a peer critique) but to extend the conversation. You can do this by echoing what resonated for you in their post and then adding your own ideas.