Aim for FiveEnglish Literature

Poetry analysis

Millay's "What lips my lips have kissed": forgetting and loss

  • Unit 5
  • 6 points
  • About 40 minutes

You read one poem and write an essay analyzing how the poet uses literary elements and techniques to develop a complex idea the prompt names. You need a defensible thesis, specific evidence from the poem, and commentary explaining how it supports your reading. On the exam: Free-response question 1 of 3 in Section II (3 essays in 2 hours, 55% of the exam score); about 40 minutes suggested; 6 points: thesis 1, evidence and commentary 4, sophistication 1.

The question and its sources

Suggested time: 40 minutes, including reading and planning. Read the poem, plan, then write your essay in the box. The poem's lines are numbered so you can point to them, for example (lines 3–4).

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts to-night, that tap and sigh
Line 5
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Line 10
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Source: Edna St. Vincent Millay, sonnet from The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (1923). Public domain.

Suggested time: 40 minutes

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The essay

6 points

In the following sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay, first published in 1920, the speaker reflects on past love on a rainy night. Read the poem carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how Millay uses literary elements and techniques to convey the speaker's complex attitude toward her past. In your essay: • State a thesis that answers the prompt with a defensible interpretation. • Choose evidence from the poem that supports your line of reasoning. • Explain how that evidence supports your line of reasoning. • Use grammar and punctuation that make your argument clear.

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