My reaction to tone

For some of these poems, tone was a very easy to recognize because I understood what the poem was about giving the tone more meaning. However, for other poems that I did not quite understand, it was difficult for me to establish what the tone was. Sure I could go and look at the diction and try to find out the tone of the poem, but I don't think this is enough. Without knowing what the idea of the poem is, then the tone is meaningless to me and even though I looked at the diction, I could still be wrong about guessing what the tone is. Knowing what the theme and central idea of the poem are key to knowing the tone in my opinion because simply knowing what the speaker is talking about would give me a very good idea of the tone. If the poem is about death, then the poem is most likely going to be negative or sad in some way. Then looking at diction and such would solidify what I believe the tone to be. So in order to truly know the tone of the poem, I think the reader need to know firsthand what the poem is talking about.