Analyze how your poem is representative of a larger social or cultural issue of our time.

Choose one of the prompts below and write a developed, thesis-driven essay. I think you can tackle either prompt in 3-4 pages.
Choose any poem from our book. I’d suggest choosing one you like or has struck you in some way. (I WILL PROVIDE THE POEM OF MY CHOICE. IT WILL BE UPLOADED IN THE FILES.)
*PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHICH PROMPT YOU CHOOSE BELOW*
1. Analyze how the structural elements of poetry (i.e. metaphor, lines & stanzas, rhyme, symbolism, etc) make the poem work and how these elements bring about the deeper meaning (the real subject) of the poem.
OR
2. Analyze how your poem is representative of a larger social or cultural issue of our time. Discuss what that issue is and how the poem illustrates the issue by looking closely at the text of the poem.
Sample Thesis Statements
1. In the poem “A Woman Is Not A Potted Plant” by Alice Walker she employs controlling metaphor to show the social forces that trap and oppress women, but she finishes the poem with the inner power of women against these social forces.
AND
2. Sekou Sundiata’s poem “Blink Your Eyes” is a poem representative of police using racial profiling to make stops and arrests and as a black New York City poet we can assume Sundiata was possibly a target of Mayor Bloomberg’s “stop and frisk” policy.